Israeli soldier killed, officer injured in accident in the north

An accident near the Lebanese border claimed the life of an IDF soldier and injured another officer in the military vehicle.

By Ebin Sandler, World Israel News

A 20-year-old Israeli soldier named Shachar Algazar was killed in a car accident on Wednesday in the Golan Heights, the IDF announced.

An officer with the rank of deputy lieutenant was also “moderately injured” in the incident, which occurred in the Har Dov area, and received medical treatment at a nearby hospital.

Following the accident, the military police opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.

According to a report by The Jerusalem Post, Algazar was the vehicle’s driver and was “immediately killed.”

Vehicular accidents remain one of the top causes of death for IDF soldiers, trailing only suicide in 2019 according to IDF statistics. The year 2019 counted the lowest number of fallen soldiers since the IDF was founded, with a total of five soldiers killed in car accidents.

Israel’s northern border with Lebanon has remained tense in the wake of airstrikes in Syria this week that reportedly claimed the life of a member of the Hezbollah terror group, which is based in Lebanon and bankrolled by Iran.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah announced that member Ali Kamel Mohsen Jawad was killed in Damascus on Monday night in a strike that has been blamed on Israel.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that five Iran-linked fighters were killed with four others wounded in the strikes. SOHR specified that the casualties were not Syrian nationals.

While Israel neither confirms nor denies responsibility for such incidents, Mideast experts posit that Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since 2017 in an effort to deter and root out Iranian military entrenchment on the Jewish state’s doorstep.