Report: IDF officer conducted unauthorized raid in Syria, killed 2-3

The Haaretz daily releases an investigative report on an IDF officer from the Golani Brigade, who allegedly carried out an unauthorized cross-border raid into Syria which the army then covered up.

According to the report, during a patrol led by Lt. Guy Eliyahu, Golani soldiers decided to cross the border into Syria. They approached a house and ordered those present, said not to be a threat to Israel, to open the door. Those inside apparently believed the Israeli interlopers to be pro-Iranian militiamen and opened fire.

What ensued was a gunfight in which Israeli soldiers killed two or three of the Syrians in the house before escaping back over the border into Israel, unhurt. The army has proceeded to cover up the incident, it says.

The date of the alleged incident remains classified.

Guy Eliyahu’s unit, according to the report, sees itself above military protocol, but his behavior, which the report says “often bordered on the criminal,” was overlooked by the higher ups. A small number of senior military officers knew the background of the Syria incident, but did not come forward, the report says.

“This was an incident that could have easily ended up with kidnapped soldiers or the bodies of fighters [held] in Lebanon or Tehran,” a military source says.

Eliyahu’s soldiers are also accused of vandalizing Palestinian cars in Nablus in 2018 and threatening residents, during a military operation, in retaliation for the deaths of their IDF comrades.