Israel army chief says professional failures behind Egyptians' deaths

Israel army chief says professional failures behind Egyptians' deaths

AFP
Date: 12-27-04

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli chief of staff told his Egyptian counterpart that the killing of three policemen on the Gaza border last month was the result of a series of professional failures.

General Moshe Yaalon told General Hamdi Wuhiba in a phone call that he had formally reprimanded commanders involved in the November 18 incident which had threatened to derail efforts to improve relations, the Israeli military said.

Yaalon said that an inquiry had "highlighted significant professional discrepancies at various levels".

"These failures relate on the one hand to professional failure of the IDF force regarding the method of operating tanks in that area, and failure in the control and command of the forces."

The chief of staff had given "an official command reprimand to the chain of command involved in the incident, namely the southern brigade commander of the Gaza Strip, the battalion commander, the regional company commander and the commander of the tank that carried out the shooting."

The three Egyptian policemen were killed when a tank unit opened fire after spotting what were believed to be three Palestinian militants trying to lay explosives along the border in the Rafah region of southern Gaza.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu Gheit "strongly protested and condemned" the killings and shelved a planned trip to Israel.

However the damage to bilateral relations was only temporary and the two governments have since forged ahead with a prisoner exchange and the signing of a joint trade treaty with the United States.

Source

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