by Elchanan Groner, Investigative Reporter
“Brother, I have been disarmed,” is how Benayahu Melet, hy”d (picture above) turned to me one day about a year and a half ago, after the weapons of the Havat Gilad rapid response team members were confiscated for inspection by order of the previous Samaria Brigade Commander.
Benayahu reported to me that their weapons were collected at the end of a rapid response team training session. The suspicion: One of the team members had fired at Arab terrorists who had approached within about a hundred meters of Havat Gilad under the guise of olive harvesters and threw stones.
A few days later, Benayahu’s weapon was returned. One of the residents, a veteran of the Undercover Counter-Terrorism Unit, was arrested and charged with shooting. The directive was clear. “The Brigade Commander wants to send us a message,” Benayahu told me.
Today, Benayahu’s widow cries out to back our fighters so there will be no more widows and orphans. But if Benayahu and the Military Security Coordinator (Ravsha”tz) had known they had backing to shoot—rather than Judea and Samaria District Police investigators and ‘conceptzia’ officers waiting for them in the background with debriefings and investigations over every little thing—perhaps Benayahu would still be with us.
Source: Hilltop News
Posted July 30, 2026
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