IDF investigating whether infantryman died from friendly fire.
By YAAKOV KATZ, JPOST.COM STAFFyehuda basel(photo credit: IDF)
St.-Sgt. Yehuda Basel, a native of Moshav Yinon near Kiryat Malachi in the south, was buried at 1:30 p.m. on Friday in the military section of the Kfar Warburg cemetery. Thousands attended the funeral.
The IDF was investigating on Friday morning the possibility that St.-Sgt. Yehuda Basel, who was fatally shot early Thursday during an operation in the Gaza Strip, was killed by IDF fire.
Media reports on Friday morning indicated that the IDF was growing convinced that Basel was in fact killed by friendly fire, but the reports were not confirmed by the army.
[For a Jerusalem Online video of events click here]
Basel was the first Israeli casualty of Operation Summer Rains, launched last week to rescue kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
His friends noted that he was thinking of taking an officer training course in the army. "He also wanted to give more and had ambitions," they described, "He loved his role and wanted to be in charge of his soldiers," Army Radio reported.
He was survived by his parents Shoshana and Zecharia, two sisters and three brothers.
Basel's father suggested that the mission that brought his son to Gaza could have been accomplished using the Air Force, without endangering soldiers' lives.
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