Tragic moment
Photo: Channel 1
Victim's cousin: Rescue forces screwed up
Cousin of man killed in botched rescue mission slams army for 'sending trainees' to minefield
The cousin of an Arab Israeli killed in a failed rescue mission at a minefield Wednesday slammed authorities for what he characterized as a "shameful screw-up."
"I’m shocked…it's difficult for me to talk right now, but I'll have plenty to say about how the State treated us," northern resident Hisham Agabriya told Ynet. His cousin, Alaa, was killed earlier after falling from a helicopter that airlifted him from a minefield.
Fatal Error
Sharon Roffe-Ofir
Wadi Ara youth ventures into minefield in northern Israel, wounded by blast. Subsequent rescue attempt goes wrong as airlift fails, man falls from helicopter
The 24-year-old Alaa Agabriya entered the minefield with his cousin and 16-year-old brother, who told police they arrived at the site to hunt for porcupines. The two were questioned on suspicion of deliberately entering a closed military zone. They told police they did not see any fences or warning signs around the minefield. However, police are looking into the possibility that the two entered the minefield deliberately with the intention of acquiring mines.
However, Hisham denied the charges, while offering harsh words in respect to the failed rescue effort.
"Instead of dispatching a professional team to rescue him, we saw what everyone else saw – my cousin falling down from an altitude of 50 meters," he said. "This is a shameful disgrace for the rescue forces, simply a screw-up; they brought young kids there, trainees, in order to rescue him."
"I saw something falling and I asked what it was. The police officers told me: Don't worry, it's his jacket,'" the victim's cousin said. "I didn't believe it, however. I saw the soldiers coming down to him again quickly. They brought him back up and flew away quickly."
A senior doctor at the trauma ward of Haifa's Rambam hospital said that Agabriya was in critical condition when he arrived at the hospital. All subsequent efforts to save him failed.
'We were sure he would make it'
For over an hour, an eyewitness to the tragedy shouted in Arabic to Agabriya, who lay wounded in the minefield. "We were sure he would make it," the witness told Ynet. "He communicated nicely with us the whole time."
The eyewitness arrived on the scene a short while after Agabriya, who supposedly planned to have a picnic with friends, was injured by a mine.
"I managed to get within a few dozen meters of him," he said. "I spoke to him the whole time. People around him were telling him not to move and to apply a tourniquet. He cried for help, telling us in Arabic: 'Come and save me.'"
The man said witnesses had yelled to Agabriya that a chopper was on the way. "In other moments he cried out from pain and said he had been injured in the heel. He yelled: 'It hurts, it hurts, help me.'"
When the chopper arrived, the eyewitness said, two soldiers disembarked and administered first aid, tied him to a stretcher, and fixed a helmet on his head.
"The field conditions were very rough and the soldiers did a professional job while putting themselves at risk," the witness said. "At the end, after he was secured, they lifted him in the air and then – like in a movie – he dropped to the ground."
The witness said the soldiers had come back down but that at that stage, "it was clear he was dead". "What happened to him was just terribly bad luck. We were sure he would make it," the witness concluded.
Ahiya Raved contributed to the story
