Mar 6, 2008 - An IDF soldier - a Bedouin tracker, age 28 - was killed Thursday morning during a routine patrol along the security fence in the central Gaza Strip, near Kissufim, when Palestinian terrorists detonated an explosive device.
A powerful roadside bomb was detonated near an IDF jeep patrolling the border on the Israeli side of the security fence. Immediately after the incident, Hamas terrorists opened fire in an attempt to disrupt rescue efforts and cause additional casualties. The tracker, seated in the front passenger seat, was killed instantly. His family has asked that his name not be made public. St.-Sgt. Liran Banai, 20, the jeep driver, critically wounded, succumbed to his wounds on Sunday, 9 March.
Most of the Bedouin tracker's family had served in the IDF. A cousin related, "He made every effort to convince youths to enlist in the IDF in order to help the country. He told them that while his service was difficult, he had chosen to defend the country he lived in." As a boy, he already knew he would serve in the army. He was a tracker at heart - when he came home on leave he would tell the children to hide objects and he would find them.
His father described him as a "golden boy - the best and dearest of all his children." The tracker completed ten years of schooling and went to work as a waiter in various hotels. As a youth he raised horses, and loved anything on wheels.
He married his first wife 10 years ago, and the second two years ago. He was about to be engaged to a third. "I want four wives," he told his mother shortly before he was killed.
The IDF tracker was buried in a non-military ceremony in a cemetery in Kseife. He is survived by his parents and 10 siblings, two wives and seven children - the oldest 9, and the two youngest 4 and 5 months old.