IDF Major Discovers Brother Was Victim

The Fellowship  |  March 5, 2019

Since military service in Israel is compulsory, the men and women who serve in the IDF are a band of brothers (and sisters). But Arutz Sheva tells us that when an IDF major heard of this week’s car-ramming attack on a group of soldiers, the attack hit even closer to home — the soldier who was severely injured by the terrorists was his own brother:

…Moshe, who knew his brother was serving as a company commander in the area, began to verify the exact details of the ramming. Within a short time, he understood: His brother was the officer who was severely injured in the attack.

Moshe’s brother, Yisrael Meir Elitzur, was transferred to Tel Hashomer Hospital together with the lightly injured Border Police officer. The Border Police officer was released from the hospital later Monday morning, while Elitzur was taken to the operating room.

Elitzur, a resident of the Binyamin-region town of Kokhav Hashahar, is married and the father of a two-year-old girl and six-month-old boy. He has been serving in the IDF for the past eight years, and currently serves as a company commander in the Kfir Brigade.

His brother, Moshe, is a major in the same brigade’s Nachshon Battalion. Both of them were doing operational activities early Monday morning, and a general announcement about the ramming attack was sent to all brigade officers just after the attack occurred. Moshe received the notification together with the other commanders, and at first did not realize it was his brother who had been injured.

“The Kfir Brigade is like family for me,” Moshe said. “I grew up in it, from the moment it was created until today. In addition to my fighter friends, I have merited to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with my brother.”

“During the night, we both went out to perform operational activities in order to protect the residents of Judea and Samaria, each of us in the area he is responsible for. When you perform these operational activities you concentrate on them fully. When I heard that my brother had been injured, I continued to carry out my task. Only after I had transferred the responsibility to someone else in an organized fashion did I travel to the hospital.

“He is my brother – my brother in blood and my brother in weapons, and we meet during exercises and activities, and share mutual values which are important to both of us, as well as a sense of mission and responsibility, all of which bring us closer together…”