Soldiers from Brigade 679, operating under Division 91 in the security zone of southern Lebanon, have given Kann News military correspondent Itai Blumenthal an account of Tuesday's clash in Bint Jbeil that diverges from the version released in the IDF Spokesperson's initial statement. According to the soldiers, it was fighters from Battalion 8112 who ultimately killed the terrorist, not an Oketz canine handler as the official statement indicated.
The incident took place during a sweep of a structure in Bint Jbeil where a reserve soldier had been seriously wounded by terrorist fire the previous Thursday. As soldiers moved to close the loop on that earlier attack, an Oketz handler sent her dog, Mars, into the building ahead of the troops. A Hezbollah operative inside opened fire, killing Mars. The handler returned fire immediately, holding her composure exactly as her training demands.
But according to the soldiers who spoke to Blumenthal, that was not the end of the encounter. Troops who arrived at the scene surrounded the terrorist and tried to negotiate his surrender, shouting demands that he give himself up. Only when he moved toward a weapon lying beside him did one of the soldiers shoot and kill him.
The soldiers' mission had been to sweep the ruined structure in Bint Jbeil as part of closing the loop on last week's incident, in which a terrorist critically wounded a reserve soldier by gunfire. The army had assessed at the time that the terrorist was killed by tank fire directed at the building, but troops still needed to confirm his death and rule out any remaining threat. It now appears the terrorist had in fact survived the tank strike, opened fire on the returning soldiers, and was only killed in the operation that followed.
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit's original statement credited the elimination of the terrorist to the Oketz handler's return fire and did not mention the standoff, the demand for surrender, or the involvement of Battalion 8112 troops in the final shooting.
