After returning to Israel from an incursion into the Gaza Strip last week, it was realized that the IDF had mistakenly left behind a fellow IDF soldier. According to a preliminary investigation, the Golani Brigade soldiers from an elite Battalion were operating in the Gaza Strip. On their way back to Israel, the force stopped some a few hundred feet from the border fence, and the soldier fell asleep.

IDF troops regularly count off in order to prevent soldiers from separating from the force, but it appears that during the count-off, one of the soldier’s friends answered for him, and his absence was not noted.

The soldier was finally located after he shot tracer bullets in the air, and waved a florescent “sticklight” to identify himself.

(Haaretz)