On Friday night, the IDF destroyed a tunnel complex where three members from the military’s 92nd Shimshon Battalion in the Kfir Brigade were killed 11 months ago, the military said on Saturday.
Positioned east of the Yellow Line, near the Beit Hanun area of the Gaza Strip in an IDF-controlled region, the tunnel ran one kilometer wide and was dozens of meters deep, the army added.
The three IDF soldiers who were killed there nearly a year ago were Capt. Ilay Gavriel Atedgi, St.-Sgt. Netanel Pessach, and Sgt.-Maj. Hillel Diener. One other soldier was wounded in the incident.
Atedgi, 22, was from Kiryat Motzkin, and served as a deputy commander; Pessach, 21, was from Elazar; and Diener, 21, was from Talmon.
Initial investigation of the three soldiers' deaths
Initial investigations published shortly after the three soldiers’ deaths said that they entered a booby-trapped area.
In this context, several possibilities were raised regarding what could have led to their deaths.
The first was that a Hamas scout detected the troops and activated an improvised explosive device from afar.
The other was that one of the troops stepped on a tripwire, which set off the device and the explosion.