Israeli soldier dies during training exercise, extreme heat likely cause

Corporal Hillel Nehemiah Ofen, 20, served in the Combat Engineering Corps’s Yahalom special operations unit.

By TPS

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 him.

The IDF was probing the cause of death, with initial reports pointing to dehydration and heat exhaustion.

Israeli is experiencing a heat wave, with extreme temperatures on Saturday and Sunday. The daily highs are now expected to decline to 33°C (91°F) in central Israel and more than 41°C (105°F) in Eilat and other parts of the country.

The IDF said that all exercises had been stopped due to the heat until 10 p.m. on Sunday. When temperatures fell overnight, some outdoor training resumed.

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

The Military Police opened an investigation into the soldier’s death.