The Arab sniper responsible for Wednesday's skirmish along the Gaza border circled the Bedouin Reconnaissance Battalion for hours, Walla! News reports Friday - and only struck after one of the soldiers took off his coat, letting down his defenses for a few critical seconds.
Southern Division soldiers serving near Gaza stated Thursday that the work on the security fence began at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. Because of the cold, the IDF soldiers wore protective clothing and cold-weather gear.
However, the hard work warmed them up, they said, and at around 11:15 a.m. one of the soldiers asked his commander if he could remove the protective gear to take off his coat - and was responded in the affirmative. But as he did so, he was hit in the upper body by shots fired from an Arab sniper, who had apparently been surveying the scene for several hours.
Another senior official argued, "there is an attempt to gloss over the gap discovered in securing the fence."
"You cannot say that there is [a sense of] complacency in the field, but more can be done to prevent such events," he added. "A soldier could die there."
One of the IDF commanders said that, in the wake of the attack, the IDF has erected an observation point and used advanced technological means to locate suspicious movements from Gaza territory, and because they did not identify the shooter, they will also examine the conduct of those at the scene, and whether or not there were gaps in the system.
The advanced observation system was initially instituted earlier this year, after there were multiple infiltrations into Israel through the border within the space of a week.
Nonetheless, the security system insists that Hamas is not interested in escalation and does not want to deteriorate the security situation with Israel. However, "activists," in their words, apparently wanted to take revenge for the IAF attack last week on concrete factories and the Hamas wing in Khan Younis - which in itself was retaliation for Qassam rockets fired at Israel, breaking a tenuous truce.