Published: 1 May 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE FAMILY of David Granit next to his grave in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem appeared on the front page of Haaretz on Monday. They came early this year for their annual Memorial Day visit, in keeping with government directives in the time of the coronavirus.
First Lieutenant David Granit, from the settlement of Ofra, was killed in an encounter with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in February 1999. It was one of the worst and most widely reported incidents in the period before the Israel Defence Forces withdrew from the security zone.
Three officers were killed, including the commander of the paratroopers commando unit, Maj. Eitan Balahsan. Balahsan and another officer, First Lt. Liraz Tito, were hit by Hezbollah fire while advancing inside a narrow crevice. David Granit, a team commander in the commando unit, jumped inside the crevice to help the wounded, and was also wounded.
One of the commando unit’s fighters, Staff Sgt Ofer Sharon later told a reporter that he hesitated about descending into the wadi, although his commander Granit called him to come and help.
“I knew that to storm ahead now was to die in a dumb war. I didn’t dare to go down. I knew that anyone who did wouldn’t return. The story of ‘I don’t believe that we should be in Lebanon’ overcame me.”
FULL STORY Twenty years after the Lebanon withdrawal, ghosts come back to haunt Israel (Haaretz)
Photo: The Boufort post (IDF Archive/Alfi Ben-Yaakov)
