A memorial ceremony held last week commemorated the attack on a civilian bus, in which 13 IDF soldiers were killed
Date: 25/06/2012, 4:13 PM
Author: Matan Galin
Ten years after an attack at the Megiddo Junction, in which 13 IDF soldiers were killed, the IDF Ordnance Corps held a memorial ceremony last week. The ceremony took place at an Ordnance Corps base that lost five soldiers in the attack.
Bereaved families, as well as soldiers and officers of the Ordnance Corps, attended the ceremony. Brig. Gen. Zvika Kraus, Chief Ordnance Officer, and Lt. Col. (res.) Yigal Even Ziv, director of the Ordnance Corps memorial and acting chairman of the Ordnance Corps Foundation, spoke at the event.
"We mark ten years since the attack, and it is as if time stopped. The relationship between the families and the unit, year after year, is our way of appreciating and understanding that this is part of our history," Brig. Gen. Kraus said in his speech.
On the morning of June 5, 2002, Egged bus 830 traveled towards Tiberias, full of passengers – most of them soldiers. After a long journey, a car bomb with a great deal of explosive material exploded alongside the bus. The explosion killed 13 IDF soldiers on their way to base.
Warrant Officer Yigal Yehezkel, commander of the Missile and Systems Department, lost two of his soldiers in the attack. Sgt. Eliran Buskila had served as a missile technician, while Sgt. Dotan Reisel was an electric fence systems technician. "This attack left me absolutely in shock," Warrant Officer Yehezkel recounted. "I had intended to leave home at 7:30, as I was used to doing, and suddenly there was a news update on the attack in Megiddo. I knew that my soldiers traveled there every day, so I started calling all of them. None of them answered me, and when I got to the base and they had not arrived, I knew."
A decade has passed since that Wednesday, but in the unit they do not forget for an instant. Soldiers of the unit routinely join the families – for every holiday or memorial ceremony. "Eliran and Dotan were my best soldiers, extremely professional, doing important work for the security of the State of Israel," added Warrant Officer Yehezkel.