A EULOGY - Israel's 911 by Dan Gordon

#Israels911

29 April 1956, Ro’i Rothberg, a member of Kibbutz Nahal Oz is killed while patrolling the Kibbutz’s fields near the Israeli border with Gaza.

Rothberg, serving as the Kibbutz’s security officer, goes out on horseback to investigate the sighting of a group of Arabs harvesting the Kibbutz’s crops. This is a frequent occurrence as noted in Rothberg’s logbook which documents incidents of Arabs harvesting the Kibbutz crops, stealing equipment and firing on Kibbutz members. Just a few days before his death, Ro’i had “caught four infiltrators in our fields, beat them up and drove them across the ditch.”

As Ro'i approaches the infiltrators, they disappear across the border and, in a planned ambush, a group of armed men takes their place. Ro’i is shot, and his body is dragged across the border into Gaza. His body is returned to Israel, mutilated that afternoon by the Israel-Egypt Mixed Armistice Commission.

The murder comes during a period of heightened activity along the Israel-Gaza border with Gaza, which at the time is under Egyptian control, a frequent hotbed for launching attacks against Israel.

The enduring legacy of Rothberg’s murder is the eulogy delivered at his funeral the following day by the Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan.