Reporter arrested for a post cheering killings of IDF troops, as fifth soldier buried

Tel Aviv police arrested a Haredi reporter Wednesday on suspicion of incitement to terrorism after he remarked that “the world is a better place” in reaction to the deaths of five Israeli soldiers hit by roadside bombs in Gaza.

Law enforcement opened a probe into Israel Frey Tuesday after the tweeted comment earlier that morning in which he appeared to rejoice over the deadly incident the night before in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun.

Four of five slain troops were laid to rest Tuesday while the fifth soldier, Staff Sgt. Moshe Shmuel Noll, was buried Wednesday at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery following a hundreds-strong procession from his parents’ home in Beit Shemesh.

“The world is a better place this morning, without five young men who partook in one of the most brutal crimes against humanity,” Frey had tweeted about the slain soldiers, four of whom served in the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion.

“Unfortunately, for the boy in Gaza now being operated on without anesthesia, the girl starving to death and the family huddling in a tent under bombardment — this is not enough,” he continued. “This is a call to every Israeli mother: Do not be the next to receive your son in a coffin as a war criminal. Refuse.”

Police said that Frey, who frequents far-left political circles, is currently in custody and will be brought to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court Thursday for an extension on his remand.

Fifth slain soldier laid to rest in Jerusalem

The three explosives that killed the five soldiers, according to an IDF investigation, were planted by Hamas terrorists ahead of the troops’ arrival and went off in succession. As the third bomb detonated, Hamas operatives opened fire on the troops.

The bombs killed Noll, 21, alongside Staff Sgt. Meir Shimon Amar, 20, Sgt. Moshe Nissim Frech, 20, and Staff Sgt. Noam Aharon Musgadian, 20, all from Jerusalem, as well as Sgt. First Class (res.) Benyamin Asulin, 28, from Haifa. Fourteen others were injured in the ambush.

Noll’s 86-year-old father, Rabbi David Noll, led a procession from his home in the Haredi neighborhood of Ramat Beit Shemesh to the capital.

At the cemetery, the slain soldier’s coffin was borne by his brother as well as fellow troops. In the crowd, some mourners donned army berets while others wore black hats.

Beit Shemesh Mayor Shmulik Greenberg attended the funeral alongside the neighborhood’s local Chabad rabbi, and others from Beit Shemesh’s large Haredi population, despite ambivalence toward the military in some corners of the ultra-Orthodox world.

In a eulogy, Noll called his son an “energetic child” who brought joy to the family.

“I do not recall a time when he displayed anger, he was truly the most beloved by all of his siblings in Israel, and will be sorely missed,” he told the crowd in English, lauding his son who “has given his life to the cause of eradicating evil that seeks to annihilate the Jewish people.”

Noll’s parents, ultra-Orthodox Jews affiliated with the Chabad movement, moved to Israel from South Africa over two decades ago, according to Hebrew media. The slain soldier was born in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City before his family moved to Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Noll’s older sister Gila said he was “an angel to us” who “persevered and worked hard with a sense of mission.”

“You were the beating heart of our family… You are my little brother, but also my best friend, the most loving,” she continued. “You loved our nation with all your heart, and no matter how dangerous it was, you knew this is what you had to do.”