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Israeli Prime Minister’s desk found in Gaza

IDF soldiers operating in Khan Yunis find desk which apparently belonged to the prime minister who liberated the Gaza Strip in 1967.

By World Israel News Staff

A desk which apparently belonged to an Israeli prime minister was found in the Gaza Strip recently by a unit of IDF soldiers taking part in Israel’s ongoing counter-terror campaign in the coastal enclave.

A law student and army reservist currently serving in the Gaza Strip, Major (res.) Eitan Melet, discovered the desk in a home in the town of Bani Suheila, just outside of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Melet shared a photograph of the desk on Twitter/X, writing: “During one of my company’s combat operations in the Bani Suheila neighborhood in Khan Yunis, inside a nice, respectable house was sitting an old wooden desk which had a small inscription on it…”

“I wonder how Mr. Levi Eshkol’s desk wound up in Khan Yunis???”

The inscription reads: “The table of the late Levi Eshkol, donated by an employee of Dubek Ltd. 1981.”

Eshkol, Israel’s third premier, served as prime minister from 1963 until his death in February, 1969. He is best known for his leadership of Israel during and immediately preceding the 1967 Six Day War, during which Israel took control over the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

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Speaking with Arutz Sheva, offered details of his discovery.

“We were in the middle of an attack on an important target that brought us a lot of intelligence and a few houses in front of the target we had to reach, we took another house. I went down with the company, and in the middle of the attack, hellfire in all directions, destruction, grenades, and whatnot, I entered the house and turned the table over, and suddenly I saw the small inscription. Crazy.”

“I told myself I had to take it. I took the knife from my vest, removed the inscription, and put it in the vest. The event was a month ago and I completely forgot about it. I started to tidy up in the last few days and suddenly pulled out the inscription. It was a small memento from two months of fighting.”

Melet said that he was baffled by the find, and has no way of knowing whether the desk is authentic, or how a former premier’s desk would have ended up in an Arab home in the Gaza Strip.

“I asked the soldiers if it made sense to anyone, based on when he died and when he was prime minister, and who the man was who gave him the table, we started to develop many theories. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s a really beautiful old wooden table, not modern but a respectable table. I don’t know what happened to it, I don’t know where it rolled, I took the small inscription and moved on.”