The IDF has released the name of the fourth soldier killed in the so-called battalion commander’s tank disaster in southern Lebanon: Staff Sergeant Nave Habsush, 20, from Giv'at Benyamin-Adumim. He was killed overnight between Thursday and Friday along with Lt. Col. Dor Gedalia Ben Shimhon, commander of Battalion 52, and the soldiers Staff Sgt. Liav Kebabia, 20, of Hod Hasharon, and Staff Sgt. Yoav Klein, 21, of Herzliya.
The deadly incident occurred around 00:20 in the village of Tibnin, when a suspicious target struck the commander’s tank containing the four soldiers. All four were killed. The IDF had already cleared the names of Kebabia, Klein, and Gedalia Ben Shimhon, who was 32 and from Kibbutz Beit Hashita. He left behind a wife and two daughters.
Habsush grew up in Adumim, studied in local schools, and after high school attended the Beit Yatir pre-army academy. He enlisted in the Armored Corps, served as a tank commander in Brigade 401, and had recently completed a tank commanders’ course. He had planned to continue on to officers’ training.
His father, Haim, who serves as deputy commander of the reserve Yiftach Brigade (11), said Nave was especially loved and always ready to help others. “He was simply a good boy,” he said. “Everyone loved him. He always gave up, helped and contributed. He was an angel walking around here with us.” In recent months Habsush fought in Lebanon as a tank commander, and his father said he felt proud of his service and saw it as a mission. He is the third fallen soldier from Giv'at Benyamin and the 64th from the Binyamin Regional Council since the war began.
