It doesn’t happen much but it happened on New Year’s Eve: Following a row with their commander over dire service conditions, 17 soldiers abandoned their base Monday evening and headed home.
They later argued that their commander ignored their complaints and interpreted them as an attempt to evade operational duties. The
escapees said that one of their main concerns was the dreadful quality of the food being served on the base.
The incident is considered one of the worst ever in Israel’s military history since the rebellion took place on duty: The soldiers had been assigned to guard the security fence around Gaza. Last time such an incident occurred was in Lebanon 10 years ago when soldiers of the 202 Reinforcement Brigade similarly abandoned their base while on duty.
The army was quick to send reinforcements to fill the vacuum left on the stretch of the fence that was abandoned by the fighters.
The soldiers, who were persuaded to return to duty less than 24 hours after they had left, following intensive negotiations with the battalion commander, will be sentenced by the brigade commander on Thursday.
The brigade to which the soldiers belong had recently left the Netzarin settlement in the Gaza Strip, which is one of the hottest spots the IDF ever had to defend.
The service conditions at bases occupied by the brigade had been upgraded and made more favorable in light of the intensive fighting routine it had endured. The soldiers argue that since their redeployment along the security fence, their service conditions had deteriorated.
It is estimated that the rebellion had been planned over a period of time. A source in the brigade said that a new battalion commander had been newly appointed and the soldiers wanted to see how far they can push the new officer. The soldiers were also encouraged by the fact that the brigade commander is also a two-week-old appointee.
As such, on New Year’s Eve, acting on coordinated timing, 15 soldiers left their surveillance positions, defied the state of alert, and went home. Following the instructions of the rebels, two soldiers who were on leave for medical reasons refused to make their way back to the base after a routine medical check and they too headed home.
The battalion commander was quick to call the soldiers to convince them to return. Those who were not convinced by the battalion commander received a call from the brigade commander. When this maneuver failed the commanders called the soldiers’ parents who in turn pressured their sons to resume their duty.
The soldiers said yesterday that they were fully aware of the heavy price they will have to pay for their misconduct, yet the conditions on the base were the worst they had ever come across and therefore they decided to abandon.
In view of the seriousness of the event, Central Command Chief, Major-General Yair Naveh decided to appoint an officer to investigate the affair.
It should be noted that this is the second grave event to occur in the IDF in the last two weeks: Earlier, two brigades in training camp clashed and threw stunt grenades at each other.
The army estimates that following the dreadful fighting in Gaza in the build-up to the pullout, disciplinary incidents are likely to rise among fighting units.
“When there is no battle, there is more time for stupidities,” a senior officer said.
“The IDF will investigate in detail the conditions which led the soldiers to act as such and will take the necessary actions to discipline them,” the IDF spokesperson said.
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