Israeli Soldier Dies During Training Exercise

IDF is probing the cause of death.

By TPS and United with Israel Staff

An Israel Defense Forces soldier died Monday morning during a training exercise in a forest near the central city of Elad.

The soldier, identified as Corporal Hillel Nehemiah Ofen served in the Combat Engineering Corps’s Yahalom special operations unit, the military announced.

The 20-year-old Ofen, from Karmei Tzur, near Hebron, had enlisted five months ago.

At around 4 a.m., a commander spotted the soldier lying motionless during a crawling exercise and began administering treatment. Emergency medical personnel from the air force’s elite Unit 669 Combat Search and Rescue extraction unit were called in but could not resuscitate the soldier.

The IDF was probing the cause of death. According to the Jerusalem Post, the IDF still did not know the cause of the soldier’s death as of Monday afternoon. It said the soldier had no underlying medical conditions.

Though Israel is experiencing a heat wave, the IDF said that when the drill proceeded at midnight, temperatures had dropped to within an acceptable range, according to the Jerusalem Post. The IDF added there had been soldiers who complained about the heat and received extra water or were given a break during the training, but not in any unusual quantity.

Following the soldier’s death, the commander of the IDF Ground Forces ordered a halt to all exercises until Wednesday at 5 a.m.