40 years after the first Tzur disaster in the First Lebanon War, the Shin Bet, the IDF and the police announced this evening (Thursday) the establishment of a joint inspection team to examine materials related to the circumstances of the disaster. In the collapse of the Israeli military government building in Tzur, which occurred on November 11, 1982, 91 soldiers, policemen and Shin Bet personnel were killed. A committee headed by Major General Meir Zore, appointed after the disaster, determined that it was caused by a gas leak.
Over the years, intelligence information has arrived according to which it is a Hezbollah attack. Apart from that, there was information about a vehicle that fled the scene. The security system believes that thanks to modern and advanced technology for analyzing samples and findings, You can generate additional information, which may change the findings since then.
Shin Bet Chief Ronan Bar, Chief of Staff Major General Aviv Kochavi and Chief of Staff Major General Kobi Shabtai announced in a statement the establishment of a joint team that will delve into the information accumulated after the committee’s work was completed. The team will examine the use of cutting-edge technologies that did not exist when the committee was operating.
“There is nothing in the establishment of the team to criticize previous tests carried out or the test carried out by the committee” they said in a statement. “The Tzur disaster is a regrettable and painful event on a national scale, and there is a moral importance in fully investigating the event. The IDF, the Shin Bet and the Israel Police participate in the grief of the bereaved families and will continue to accompany them.”
On behalf of some of the families of those killed in the disaster, a response was given: “We are orphans who did not get to know their fathers, grandchildren who did not get to be hugged by a grandfather, women who were widowed, children who received their father back in body, but not in soul. All of these together and each one separately, lived for years with the feeling of shame, because there is no other word to describe the feeling of a hero who goes out to fight in the service of the state and the cause of his death and/or injury is an ‘accident’, when it was clear to all of us, the families of the bereaved, the victims and members of the second and third generations what the difference is between a tragic accident and a heroic death in the value sense.
“After many years in which the martyrs and victims of the first Tsur disaster, who make up the mosaic of Israeli society, did not receive the place they deserved in the pages of commemoration and history of the State of Israel, the time has come to restore their memory to their rightful place and honor their legacy that has been dimmed over the years.”