Last update - 00:00 19/12/2007
IDF takes responsibility for reservists' deaths in Katyusha strike
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent
In a letter sent from the Israel Defense Forces to the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, the IDF said it was responsible for the death of the twelve reservists who were killed near the entrance of the Kibbutz by a Katyusha rocket during the Second Lebanon War last August.
"The IDF is responsible for the failures and mistakes that led to the tragedy. The residents of Kfar Giladi must not be held at all responsible," Northern Command Chief of Staff Brigadier General Alon Friedman wrote recently in a letter to the Kibbutz and the head of the Upper Galille regional council.
Following the war, relatives of those killed claimed that residents would not let the soldiers into the kibbutz due to fears that the soldiers would cause damage to property.
Benjamin Ben David, whose son Daniel died in the rocket strike, said at the memorial service that, "the blood of our sons calls out from the earth to the kibbutz."
Over a year ago, Haaretz revealed the content of a document in which the IDF issued an order during the war in Lebanon banning communities on the northern border from granting entry to troops without the prior permission of the military.
Friedman also wrote to the kibbutz that the incident would be investigated.
Kibbutz member Uri Eshkoli said Wednesday that "the IDF woke up a bit late and with too low a profile. We deserve a medal of honor for our assistance during the war. We opened our hotel to soldiers and asked for no compensation. Moreover, soldiers stayed in the kibbutz through out the entire war. Our conscious was clean the entire time."
"It hurt us when people tried to put the blame on us in order to clear someone else's name. I know that this letter won't change the minds of those who spoke so strongly against us," Eshkoli added.
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