Last update - 00:00 13/07/2007
IDF soldier killed in Gaza laid to rest Friday in Galilee town
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Staff Sergeant Arbel Reich, who was killed Thursday morning in a firefight with Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip, was buried at 11 A.M. Friday in the Galilee town of Misgav.
Reich, a 21-year-old Givati Brigade soldier from Yuvalim in the Galilee, was shot as a reconnaissance unit of the brigade carried out an operation two kilometers into central Gaza, on the outskirts of the al-Boureij refugee camp. Two other soldiers were lightly wounded in the incident.
According to an initial debriefing, the reconnaissance force came under light-weapons fire at around 3 A.M., and an explosive device targeting the soldiers was detonated. Reich was killed instantly.
The IDF force returned fire against the Palestinian gunmen, and the Israel Air Force later carried out an attack against an armed Palestinian group believed to be the same gunmen who attacked the Israeli patrol. In the two incidents, five Islamic Jihad militants were wounded.
The group claimed responsibility for the attack, and said companies of its military wing had shot at the patrol and detonated the explosives after the patrol was relatively deep inside the Gaza Strip.
In their assessment of the incident, IDF officers are trying to clarify whether the Palestinians had identified the route of the force in advance, or whether the encounter was more coincidental. During an operation last week in the same area, Givati troops killed 11 Palestinian gunmen, but the route of Thursday's patrol was different.
The IDF operation continued in spite of the firefight, and several dozen Palestinians were arrested for questioning, with most released soon after. A number of Palestinians were taken by the Shin Bet into Israel for questioning.
The IDF has intensified its operations inside the Gaza Strip but has not deployed patrols deeper than two kilometers into the Palestinian territory.
A Qassam rocket and mortars, fired Thursday from the Gaza Strip against the western Negev, hit fields but caused no casualties.