Veteran military reporter whose 1976 reporting brought down first Rabin government dies at 79

Yisrael Katzover, the military correspondent for the ultra-Orthodox Hamodia newspaper, has died at the age of 79.

Katzover has been reporting on military affairs since the 1960s.

In 1976, Katzover’s reporting brought down Yitzhak Rabin’s first government, Israel’s 17th government.

At the time, Israel had just received the first batch of F-15 fighter jets from the United States. Some 3,000 people attended a reception ceremony, which was held on a Friday afternoon, a few hours before the beginning of Shabbat at sundown. The event was supposed to end before the day of rest began, but the planes were delayed and the ceremony ran late. Most of the audience at the event were forced to violate the Sabbath and travel home on Shabbat, Katzover reported.

When the opposition called for a no-confidence vote, the National Religious Party, which was part of the government, abstained instead of voting against. Rabin booted the party from the coalition, ending his majority in the Knesset and prompting a fresh election.