Soldier killed clearing mines told friends he was looking forward to mission
Army still investigating explosion in Golan minefield which killed Combat Engineering Corps soldier Roi Alphi, 19
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Private Roi Alphi, 19, from Gan Yavne, who was killed when a land mine exploded on the Golan Heights Tuesday afternoon, had told his friends days before he died how much he was looking forward to the mine-clearing mission.
Alphi, who was in advanced training in the Combat Engineering Corps, will be laid to rest in Gan Yavne on Thursday evening.
Alphi was inducted into the IDF in November. He was the fifth of five children, with three brothers and a sister, and his relatives said Wednesday he was extremely proud to be serving in a combat unit. Friends and relatives converged on the family home Wednesday to try to console his bereaved family.
Childhood friend Naor Asphir said Alphi had told him days ago that his unit was being sent to clear a minefield in the Golan Heights, and that he was looking forward to the “cool” mission, Ynet reported. Asphir said Alphi was an upbeat, sunny personality, “always smiling.”
Relatives said the family was trying to come to terms with their loss, that they were angry, but were seeking first to understand exactly what had gone wrong. The IDF was still investigating what it said was the unprecedented incident on Wednesday, apparently baffled by why an Israeli mine, the characteristics of which were well known, had exploded and killed Alphi.
Alphi and his colleagues were clearing anti-tank mines in the southern Golan, near the small town of Yonatan, as part of ongoing mine-clearing operations by the IDF in several locations.
A senior source in the engineering corps said the mine was Israeli, in a field that dated from the 1990s, and had been discovered earlier in the day, uncovered and marked.
The soldier did not step on the mine, which in any case was meant to require more than the weight of a person to detonate, but he was very close to it when it exploded, IDF sources said. It was of a kind designed to explode if an armored vehicle went over it.
Two other soldiers were very lightly injured in the blast.
Initial investigation showed the soldiers to have been properly trained for the work, and to have been equipped with all appropriate protective gear. Work in the minefield was halted while the investigation continued.
The mine contained 10 kilograms (22 lbs.) of explosives, military sources said. It was supposed to have required a weight of over 140 kilograms (300 lbs.) to detonate. Some reports said the mines in the field were not of a type that could be cleared by robots.
Fatalities among soldiers on training courses are rare, but not unheard of. In 2012, one soldier died and 84 were injured during training, which was up from 67 injured and no deaths the previous year.
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Between the Golan Heights in the north and the Arava desert in the south, Israel has defused some 2,200 land mines in the last 20 years, according to the IDF website.
In 2010, two children were injured when they accidentally detonated a mine while hiking near Mount Hermon.
The Times of Israel Community.