An Israeli special forces officer who was killed during the Lebanon
war was nominated for Israel’s top military honor.
Ma’ariv quoted senior officers
as saying Sunday that Maj. Roi Klein, who served as deputy
regimental commander in the Golani infantry brigade, was nominated for
the Valor Medal. An official announcement is expected later this week.
Klein
jumped on a grenade when his unit came under Hezbollah attack during
last year’s fighting, giving his life to spare his men. He would be the first soldier in more than 30 years to win
the medal.
A total of 41 servicemen have received the decoration, many
of them posthumously. Klein, 31, had a wife and two children.
Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert eulogized Klein in a speech halfway through the Lebanon war.
“I
think about Roi, and my soul cannot find peace,” Olmert said. While leading
his men, Olmert said, Klein “jumped on the grenade thrown at them,
absorbed the force of the explosion on his body and saved the lives of
his fighters. He still had the chance to murmur ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is One’ and asked the signal operator to report his
death.”
