The Israel Defense Force has set up two investigatory panels to establish how armed infiltrators managed to steal across the Jordan River over the weekend, in two separate incidents, and penetrate some distance into Israeli territory without being noticed.
In the more serious of the incidents, which occurred before dawn Saturday, one terrorist was killed, but his companion managed to escape back across the border some 200 yards away.
The two had managed to creep unseen across the Jordan River near Mehola, not far from Beit She’an, and had penetrated the perimeter fence around a military outpost there. But they did not get past the security trenches and enter bunkers at the installation.
Soldiers at the outpost spotted them and opened fire on the infiltrators, who were armed with Kalachnikov rifles and grenades. The pair began to withdraw back toward the river, but one was shot dead while the other escaped.
A soldier was lightly wounded by “friendly fire” in the exchange.
Maj. Gen. Danny Yatom, commander of the central sector, who visited the scene together with the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, expressed regret that one of the infiltrators had managed to escape without being killed, telling his troops that no would-be infiltrator should be left alive.
He appointed a commission to look into the incident, saying that disciplinary action should be taken against any officers or soldiers found to have not carried out their duties properly.
In an earlier incident last Friday, a lone Jordanian soldier, dressed in civilian clothes and armed with two knives, crossed the Jordan River just north of its outflow into the Dead Sea, reaching the perimeter of the Water Sports Park at Kalis, on the northern shore of the lake.
When called upon to halt by an IDF soldier, the infiltrator pulled out a knife and tried to attack him, before he was overcome by the guard and a companion. A second knife was found hidden in his clothing.
The infiltrator told interrogators he had crossed the border by mistake.
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