IDF removes officers from elite Egoz unit, punishes commander, over friendly fire deaths

The deputy commander of the elite Egoz Unit will be removed from his position and barred from command positions for the next two years, and the head of the unit will be barred from command positions after finishing his term, over their roles in the deaths of two officers in the detachment in a deadly case of friendly fire last month.

A number of junior officer are also being removed from their posts and barred for two years for the incident, which occurred as members of the unit conducted an impromptu search for night vision equipment that had been stolen the day before, the military says.

The commander of the Egoz Unit offered his resignation, but IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi refused to accept it, instead ordering that he complete his tenure in the unit but will from then on be barred from command positions for the next two years.

The names of the commander and deputy commander are barred from  publication.

Maj. Ofek Aharon, 28, and Maj. Itamar Elharar, 26, were killed on January 12 when the patrol they were in came across an officer who mistook them for terrorists. Both the larger group and the single officer tried to find the night vision goggles, but did not coordinate.

The investigation into their deaths found that the unit had a “culture of failing to report and investigate [incidents],” that the officers involved in the incident displayed “no common sense,” and set out on their wildcat patrol without planning, but with their guns loaded, with bullets in the chamber, in clear violation of IDF protocol and IDF values, according to the head of the probe, Maj. Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon.

Tibon tells reporters that severe disciplinary issues and a deeply flawed organizational culture were behind the friendly fire incident that left the two dead. He said that the unit’s chain of command could have and should have intervened.

He notes that a night before the deadly incident a soldier who thought he saw suspicious figures in the distance also fired his gun into the air without going through the necessary open-fire protocol in another violation of military norms. This came after officers from the unit had gone out to nearby Bedouin communities to search for the stolen night vision equipment, questioning people and searching homes in a clear violation of army protocol.

Both of these incidents were known to the heads of the Egoz Unit, but no steps were taken against those involved, which Tibon says could have kept the event from escalating.

Also speaking to reporters about the probe, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, the head of the IDF Central Command, which contains the Egoz Unit, repeatedly describes Aharon and Elharar, as well as the other officers involved, as “the best of our boys,” but acknowledged that in going out on their respective patrols with guns loaded and with no coordination they showed “no common sense.”