Arutz Sheva spoke to Roni Drori, the father of IDF soldier Eliyahu Drori, killed in a tank accident in April.
Drori discussed the conclusions of an investigative committee about the accident that were recently published.
“We wanted to understand if Eliyahu suffered - and it seems, thank G-d, that he did not. We also wanted to understand the details of the story, because when you see the details it allows you to see the hashgacha pratit [Divine intervention], you can see what Hashem was doing and that it was all from Heaven. That’s really what we saw from the details of what happened.”
Drori explained that the circumstances that led to his son’s death were so unlikely as to render them unattributable to any tangible cause, and that this in itself provides comfort.
“This accident was like if you’re driving in a parking lot, and you bump into another car, and then your car blows up. You can learn all the lessons you want about how not to hit the other car, but the problem is that the car blew up. The fire, which was caused by a piece of metal, went into a tank shell, it went through a tiny gap while the turret was turning - they’re not even changing anything because of that, because it was such a crazy thing that never happened before, and they never expect it to happen again.
“The way it happened, it’s a comfort that there’s no one to hate. He wasn’t killed by somebody, it wasn’t anybody’s fault, and that makes it a different experience.”
Drori noted steps being taken to commemorate his son. “His yeshiva, Shaalvim, is raising funds to build a dormitory in his name, and his synagogue, Meam Loez, is helping us to raise money to dedicate a house of Torah study in Ramat Beit Shemesh Aleph in his memory,” he said, adding that there is also a website dedicated to Eliyahu’s memory.