The IDF has thrown out two soldiers and intends to try officers for security failures that allowed a Gaza terrorist, armed with a grenade, to infiltrate into the Western Negev earlier this week.
An alert civilian security officer spotted and apprehended the terrorist before he could stage an attack that apparently was intended on residents in the community of Yated.
The army investigation discovered several lapses in security, and corrective measures were implemented immediately, the military said.
Disciplinary action was taken against the Bedouin Desert Patrol Battalion commander, one company commander was reprimanded, and the army removed a deputy commander and operations officer from their positions.
The terrorist could have inflicted a serious attack if he had tossed the grenade at a school bus, which is how the Southern Command viewed a possible result of the sloppy behavior of the soldiers whose patrol did not identify the infiltrator even though he walked for approximately two miles after crossing the security fence before dawn on Sunday. The patrol received information that the fence may have been crosses, but the soldiers searched in the wrong area.
The terrorist is believed to have acted on his own.
The IDF immediate IDF investigation contrasts with the delayed and feeble reaction of the police to the recklessness of one or more officers who ignored the frantic call from one of the three kidnapped youth that they had been abducted.
The failure of the police to inform security forces cost the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) several hours, during which time the terrorists were able to take their victims to an unknown destination.
Security forces were not alerted until one of the fathers of the abducted youth pleaded with the police to realize that his son had not arrived home from his yeshiva in Gush Etzion.