Yishai Rosales, an IDF officer from the ultra-Orthodox battalion Netzach Yehuda, was killed in a training accident after a mortar shell landed near him at the Tze’elim training base in the Negev. The officer, who was hit in the head, was declared dead at the site. A soldier who sustained light to medium injuries in his hand was evacuated by helicopter to the Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva. Both were hit by ricochets from a mortar shell that fell near an observation deck where the two had been standing. The shell ricocheted over a radius of several hundred yards and damaged a number of vehicles.
The accident occurred at the end of battalion exercises, that were being conducted concurrent with preparations of a fire show by Armored Corps battalion 75, which included live fire. A unit of the armored battalion was responsible for the mortar fire, and at the moment it is not clear why the shell’s trajectory hit the viewing stand.
Ground Forces Commander Major-General Guy Tzur ordered a halt on all IDF land exercises until the end of the initial full investigation of the event. He also appointed an Armored Corp officer to head the investigation.
On November 5, 1992, a rehearsal for an operation to assassinate then president of Iraq Saddam Hussein that was conducted at the Tze’elim base ended in disaster when Israeli commandos accidentally fired live rounds into a convoy simulating the target, killing five special force commandos and wounding six more. Then IDF Chief Ehud Barak was watching the entire tragedy. Bound by military censorship, Israeli press reports described the incident as a “training accident,” until on November 24 The Miami Herald broke the story, with a twist, citing the target as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.