From the Liveblog of
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Soldier killed, 16 injured by roadside bombs during Jenin operation
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
An Israeli soldier was killed and several others were wounded by roadside bombs while operating in the northern West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp early on Thursday, the military announces.
The slain soldier is named as Cpt. Alon Sacgiu, 22, a sniper squad commander in the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv reconnaissance unit, from Hadera.
The IDF had been carrying out an overnight raid in Jenin aimed at capturing members of a Hamas terror network in the city and adjacent refugee camp.
According to an initial IDF probe, a Panther armored personnel carrier (APC) was hit by a bomb planted under a road in Jenin during the operation, at around midnight between Wednesday and Thursday. The soldiers inside the APC were slightly hurt by the blast. As additional forces reached the scene and worked to evacuate the wounded soldiers, another bomb exploded, leading to the death of Cpt. Sacgiu and the injury of additional troops.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
In all, 16 soldiers were wounded by the bombs — one seriously, five moderately and the rest lightly.
Before the APC drove along the road where the attack took place, a military D9 bulldozer and backhoe had scraped the road to uncover any potential improvised explosive devices. Armed groups in Jenin frequently plant IEDs under roads to attack Israeli forces carrying out arrest raids, and as such, the military rips up the roads with armored bulldozers before entering with lighter-armed vehicles.
Still, the two large IEDs were not discovered by the bulldozer and backhoe, and the military believes that they were planted much deeper in the ground than usual. The IDF was also probing how the bombs were activated, either by wire or wirelessly.
The slain soldier and the more seriously wounded were all outside of their armored vehicle when the second bomb went off, according to the IDF’s initial probe. The APC was largely able to protect the soldiers from the initial attack, with only minor injuries from the blast and smoke inhalation.
The military is now investigating how to better detect such IEDs and how to extract wounded soldiers from such incidents in a safer manner.
