‘A miracle’: Father of injured soldier says bullet hit grenade which failed to explode

One of the bullets that struck a counter-terrorism officer during a predawn raid earlier this week hit a grenade he was carrying but did not cause the device to detonate, his father says.

“There was a miracle. There was a fragmentation grenade on his vest. One of the bullets hit the grenade and split it in two. Miraculously, it didn’t explode,” says the father of the officer, who can only be identified by his rank and first Hebrew initial of his name, Cpt. “Dalet.”

Dalet’s father, Yossi, says his son’s condition had slightly improved as of Wednesday morning, and that he had responded to the question of where he was by nodding his head.

Dalet was one of two soldiers seriously injured in the early hours of Sunday morning. His father said his son was hit by nine bullets during an exchange of gunfire in the town of Burqin outside Jenin in the northern West Bank.