An attack on IDF probes

[Nadav]

By Gideon Alon

Last Update: 28/02/2005 08:40



Three years ago, early in the morning of March 3, 2002, a lone Palestinian sniper, using an outdated rifle, killed 10 soldiers and civilians at an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint in Wadi Haramia, north of the settlement of Ofra, and left the place without a scratch. The sniper, who was equipped with a telescopic gunsight, arrived at night at the hill that overlooks the checkpoint. He placed himself behind a terrace next to an olive tree and carefully kept track of the movements of the soldiers. First he shot at a soldier who was checking an Israeli car that had come from the north, and killed him and the driver. Next he shot two soldiers at the outpost and killed them. At the sound of the shots, one of the soldiers emerged from the building next to the checkpoint that housed the soldiers. He was also shot, and wounded in the hand.





The platoon commander, First Lieutenant David Damelin, who heard the shots, emerged from the building, and was shot and killed on the spot. Then the paramedic emerged from the building to help the injured, who were groaning in pain, but he was also shot and killed. The soldiers remaining in the building understood that if they went outside they would be killed, and so decided to return fire from inside. But they didn't get the sniper. The bloody affair was not over yet: The seventh casualty was a civilian who arrived at the checkpoint from the north: The sergeant major of the reserve company that was manning the checkpoint, who had come to help the soldiers, was also shot, as were two people who had come to the spot in civilian vehicles.

The results of the attack were severe: 10 soldiers and civilians were killed, six were injured. The Palestinian sniper left the place on foot, without his rifle, and walked to one of the nearby Palestinian villages. At first it was thought he was a member of the Irish underground who had come to help the Palestinians, but last October, Tha'er Kayed Hamed, a 24-year-old from the village of Silwad north of Ramallah, was captured. He confessed to the killings, and said that in 1998 he had found an old Mauser rifle and 300 bullets, and he would go out to the wadis and practice firing. Hamed said he had chosen the hill because it offered a good viewpoint, and that he left the place because the old weapon, with which he fired about 30 bullets, fell apart in his hands.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=Confirm+kill&itemNo=545729

Reviewing history is always enlightening.

[eyl]

1. I assume the point you are making

refers to the latter section of the article (which you didn't quote).

To understand the roots of the problem, you need to go back about a decade and a half ago, to the Lebanon Security Zone and to the first intifada. At that time, incidents were investigated far more stringently. The problem was, that operational elements were investigated as criminal elements. It reached the stage where a popular saying was coined that "Each platoon commander needs a lawyer in his gear". Operational mistake - and it's almost unavoidable, in a combat operation, not to have some (finding them is one of the purposes of debriefings) - were liable to bring criminal sanctions on the commanders in question. There were two results:

1) People started lying during investigations to avoid jail.
2) Soldiers would be paralyzed during operations, not knowing which move they would have to explain in court.

To solve this problem, during the 90s, the process was changed. The investigation of mistakes was split in two - the tahqir (inquiry*), which is an operational investigation, designed to identify and correct operational and command flaws, and the haqira (investigation) AKA haqirat metzach (metzach is the IDF military police's investigative section), which is intended to identify criminal misconduct. An investigation does not always happen, but is initiated only when it is believed to be warranted (also, regulations list types of incidents which automatically trigger an investigation). The two are independent, and theoretically, at least, the finding of the inquiry can't be used in the investigation (the purpose being to allow the command structure to identify and correct flaws without the witnesses being concerned about self-incrimination).

Unfortunately, it seems the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction. As the article describes, there's a serious problem with the IDF's inquiry procedure (the ground forces - the "green"'s - in particular; the IAF's is supposed to be better), though it also describes steps being taken to fix this. Part of the problem, IMO, is that while the isolation between the inquiry and the investigation sounds very good in theory, it's difficult to implement in a country the size of Israel, particularly one where he population is highly involved in the military.

*An inquiry actually takes place (or is supposed to, anyway) after every operation, but here I'm talking about high-level inquiries convened when something obviously went wrong (or is suspected to have gone wrong).

[Nadav]

2. In part

I posted the article to point out the kinds of attacks (non-suicide) that were being perpetrated throughout on military and civilian victims, and the freedom that the Palestinians had prior to the wall being constructed. The firming up of the borderer areas, the checkpoints, and the wall construction have all resulted in the elimination of attacks, as much as they have been eliminated.

Your comments are informative, and bring to light the difficulties and the operational problems in the complexity of urban warfare.