Four of six IDF soldiers killed in Gaza were victims of friendly fire

Four Israel Defense Forces soldiers, who were killed in two separate incidents in the Gaza Strip on Monday, appear to have been killed by friendly fire, according to initial military investigations.

Three soldiers from the Golani Brigade - Cpl. Yusuf Muadi, 19; Staff Sgt. Nitai Stern, 21; and Maj. Dagan Vertman, 31 - were killed and 20 wounded in the Gaza City neighborhood of Sajaiyeh, in what the IDF said appeared quite likely to be a blast caused by two IDF tank shells during clashes with Hamas. It appears that the troops were taking shelter behind a building wall that collapsed as a result of the explosion.

"There was apparently a mistake in identification, and one of the tanks fired on the building where several commanders were situated to plan the combat for the next day," brigade commander Col. Avi Peled, who was lightly hurt in the incident, said yesterday.

As Hamas fired mortar shells at the troops, soldiers evacuated the casualties from the rubble "in a professional way," Peled said.

The probe indicates that senior officers were responsible for directing fire toward the building. From an observation point on the third floor of the building that was hit, the officers identified gunmen in the next building and ordered the tanks to fire at them. However, the crowded construction in the area and the confusion that resulted because the buildings were the same height led the tank commander to open fire on the IDF soldiers instead of the Hamas gunmen.

"The initial lessons from the incidents have been transferred to the commanders of the forces in the field, as well as to the reserve units in training ahead of possible entry into the Strip," said Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Harel.

In the second friendly fire incident Monday, Capt. Jonathan Netanel, 27, of the Paratroop Brigade was killed by a tank shell near Beit Hanun in northern Gaza at around 10 P.M.

In contrast to the usual treatment of officers involved in friendly fire incidents, the IDF does not apparently intend to take any steps against the commanders involved in these incidents. The IDF sees them as mistakes that take place in wartime and is leaving a more detailed report for when the situation calms.

Such incidents are considered the curse of urban warfare. The many troops operating in a densely crowded area under enemy threat has led to fatal mistakes on previous occasions as well. The IDF has been trying for years to minimize the number of friendly fire incidents, and there has been a significant decrease during training. But in wartime, when many forces are in the field at the same time, misunderstandings and misidentification take place when the soldiers doing the shooting mistakenly believe they are firing on hostile forces.

Such incidents happen more frequently at night and often involve tanks, whose heat detectors make it difficult to distinguish between friend and foe. By contrast, military aircraft are equipped with an identification system that greatly reduces the danger of friendly fire - but there can still be a problem when Israeli aircraft mistakenly fire on IDF ground forces, often due to miscommunication.

The IDF is developing more advanced monitoring technology, like electronic systems that identify the forces in real time, in an effort to reduce friendly fire. Though cutting down on such incidents is much harder in actual combat than during training, there is a lot of room for improvement: Data from Israel's wars show that about a quarter of IDF soldiers killed in wartime were hit by Israeli fire.

Anshel Pfeffer contributed to this report.