IDF dismisses officers who lied about death of reservist

Two low-ranking IDF officers were dismissed from their positions after they were caught lying repeatedly during an investigation into the death of a reservist who collapsed on a cross-country run earlier this year, a senior IDF officer says.

A deputy brigade commander was also formally censured, and more servicemen are expected to be punished in the near future, the officer says.

However, the military official stresses that the officers’ conduct did not “in any way” cause the reservist’s death, who was found to have died of heart failure.

On March 21, Cpt. (res.) Elhanan Brezler, 36, of the IDF’s [Jordan] Valley Reservists Brigade died after running approximately four kilometers as part of an army-organized run from the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee by way of the Jordan Valley.

During an investigation into the incident, the lieutenants in question were asked if they had prepared a document on safety procedures for the run, as required by IDF rules. They had not, but one of them told investigators that they had prepared such a document, the military official says. The officers then fabricated a set of safety procedures after the fact, which they offered to investigators as evidence.

In light of the “gross moral failure,” the commander of the brigade dismissed both officers.

— Judah Ari Gross