Fallen soldier’s family takes military headstone to IDF headquarters in protest
Sgt. Gur Kehati was killed in Lebanon in 2024 by Hezbollah operatives alongside civilian researcher; charges were recently dropped against officer who sent them
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The relatives of a fallen soldier who are outraged over how the Israel Defense Forces has addressed their son’s death staged a protest on Thursday by uprooting his headstone from a military cemetery and placing it in front of the office of the General Staff at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The gesture by the family of Sgt. Gur Kehati came a little over a week after the new military advocate general, Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir, decided to close a criminal case against a senior reserve officer who was being investigated for Kehati’s death. At the time of that decision, the family expressed “shock, frustration and pain.”
On Thursday, they demonstrated their anger by placing his military headstone at the door of the General Staff offices.
In footage of the incident published by Hebrew media, Kehati’s father is seen placing a note on the headstone reading: “For Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, from the Kehati family.”
Kehati was killed alongside 71-year-old civilian researcher Ze’ev Erlich on November 20, 2024, while entering an archaeological site in southern Lebanon. The visit took place at the height of an Israeli ground offensive against the Hezbollah terror group in southern Lebanon, a week before a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah brought to a halt more than a year of hostilities.
Col. (res.) Yoav Yarom, who led the incursion, has been heavily criticized for allowing Erlich to enter the western sector of southern Lebanon, in IDF uniform, without the necessary approvals. Erlich had long served in the military reserves despite his advanced age, but was not in active service at the time of his entry into Lebanon.
Yarom and Erlich were joined by a team of soldiers as they entered a medieval fortress in the southern Lebanese village of Shamaa, revered by Christians and Shiite Muslims as the 1st-century burial place of Saint Peter.
Believing the area had been cleared of threats, Yarom led Erlich and accompanying troops to the site, where two Hezbollah operatives ambushed the forces, killing Erlich and Kehati. An officer was seriously wounded, and Yarom himself was moderately wounded, before the gunmen were killed.
Following an extensive Military Police investigation, the Military Prosecution in September decided to indict Yarom with the charge of reckless homicide, subject to a hearing. In one of his first moves, however, new Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir decided on December 16 to close the case because the investigation material showed that the visit to the site “had been planned in advance by the commander of the force… and was required for operational purposes.”
Kehati’s mother, Maayan Agmon Kehati, wrote on Facebook below a photo of the family removing the headstone that she had declined an invitation to meet with the military advocate general because she wasn’t “mentally prepared.”
“He wasted the beautiful life he was building for himself on the army, on the people here and on this disgusting state,” she wrote of her son. “Gur was a rare person.”
She added: “This land is a curse. Judaism is a curse. I’m done with them. More accurately, they’re done with me.”
The Times of Israel Community.