jerusalem (jps) | Capt. Moshe Taranto, 23, of Ashdod, the commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite tunnel-busting unit, was killed and another officer was lightly wounded last week when a deep ditch parallel to a weapons-smuggling tunnel collapsed, burying them in sand on the Philadelphi Route in the southern Gaza Strip.
Taranto was laid to rest Nov. 30 in the Ashdod Military Cemetery.
Initially the two officers had attempted to enter via the tunnel opening but realized that they were unable to proceed, an IDF officer said. A decision was then made to dig a deep trench on either side of the area where they suspected the tunnel was located and use electronic devices to find it. Taranto jumped into the ditch, which was reportedly 33 feet deep, and the second officer followed. The mounds of sand surrounding the ditch caved in, burying the two officers. At the time of the incident the bulldozers used to dig the ditches were not working, the officer said.
Other officers questioned the decision to carry out such activities while the ground was still damp from a recent rainfall. “The soldiers were aware of the approximate location of the tunnel. Perhaps it would have been wiser to postpone operations until the ground was dry,” one officer said.
A previous attempt to determine the location and depth of the tunnel on Oct. 21 was suspended when a bomb exploded, killing Sgt. Maj. Moshe Elmaliah of Dimona.
The officers were extricated within minutes, but attempts to revive Taranto failed. The wounded officer was airlifted to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and later released.
In June, the army decided to boost the tunnel-busting unit by recruiting troops from the Engineering Corps’s elite Yahalom unit. Hakani had persuaded the army to enlarge the unit and provide its soldiers with special training and equipment.
One soldier was killed and five wounded in a June accident when a tunnel rigged with explosives blew up underneath the Orhan outpost in Gush Katif. Last December, IDF soldiers remained unscathed after a bomb containing hundreds of pounds of explosives blew up on the wall of the Hardon outpost.