Mideast Wire brings news of this provocative report from an Algerian independent newspaper, which details the communications failures between senior IDF command and troops in the field which led directly to the kidnapping of two soldiers and the killing of another 8 on July 12th:
Al Akhbar, a newly founded independent newspaper, reported in its September 21 issue about an Israeli report about the recent war on Hezbollah: “An investigation implemented by an Israeli General in the northern front, Avi Ashkanazi, revealed a series of failures which riddled the military northern front during the capture by Hezbollah of the two Israeli soldiers Eldad Reghef and Dodi Goldfasser. The report included ‘recommendations to implement radical changes in the northern zone’ including ‘changes in the brigades and regiments in the army and the way they operate’…
The newspaper continued: “…The investigation [found] that the patrol in which the two captive soldier participated in…‘Valley 105’ on the northern borders ‘had not been planned at all.’ [Further] the military commanders in the area had issued instructions prior to the capture that prohibit Israeli military vehicles from moving in that area because it was ‘invisible and not easy to discern’. But these instructions didn’t reach the army brigades in the region and the regiment to which the two soldiers belonged ‘had no knowledge of those instructions at all’. The report points to information labelled ‘dangerous,’ especially the fact that the commanders of the northern front had raised the level of alert to face the possibility of the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers on the northern borders after the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza.”
The newspaper added: “But the commanders on the western part of the northern front decided to lift the ‘extreme alert’ status and returned things to normal three days before the occurrence of the kidnapping operation. The writers of the report pointed out that they ‘do not understand why the alert was revoked and on what basis it was done’…
If you add to this that there had been several unsuccessful Hezbollah kidnapping attempts in precisely the same location where the actual kidnapping occurred, then wouldn’t you say we have a case here of extreme negligence?