Posted on 11/23/2004 6:34:05 AM PST by Pitiricus
Rafael "Raful" Eitan, died as he lived, literally fighting against the current of a giant wave that swept him out to sea as he worked in the Ashdod port Tuesday morning.
Eitan, 75, was a former deputy prime minister as leader of the maverick nationalist Tzomet Party and served as agriculture and environment minister.
According to preliminary findings, police said, Eitan apparently tripped and fell into the water at around 8:00 a.m. when the pier on which he stood was hit by a giant wave. He may have sustained a head injury.
Yair, a Magen David Adom paramedic who was at the scene, told Army Radio of the attempts to resuscitate Eitan. "When we arrived Raful was already lying on the ground. An IDF medical team started trying to resuscitate him. MDA arrived and began using more sophisticated resuscitation methods, but our efforts were in vain."
Eitan's body was taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir, where experts are deciding whether to conduct an autopsy to determine the exact cause of his death.
Transportation Minster Meir Sheetrit ordered Ashdod Port manager Shaul Rotem to establish a committee to investigate the circumstances of Eitan's death.
Eitan traveled to the Ashdod Port on almost a daily basis over the past two years. He headed a team assigned with constructing water breakers off a new section of the port. Dockworkers told police that they saw him park his car but that he went missing shortly after.
The Ports Authority declared a state of emergency. Police forces were alerted to the scene and IAF helicopters together with Navy boats began searching the stormy Mediterranean for Eitan's body.
Eitan apparently arrived early at the port to inspect equipment, which he feared had been damaged by Monday night's storm.
At 9 a.m. an IAF helicopter located Eitan's body floating in the ocean off the military portion of the port. His body was identified shortly later by a group of Navy divers and was pulled aboard a military ship where attempts were made to resuscitate him.
"The man was courageous, a true leader, and embodied the true qualities of a fighter. It might sound strange but it suits him to die at work," said former president Ezer Weizman, who as defense minister appointed Eitan to head the IDF.
"He always went, as Napoleon once observed about one of his generals, to the sound of the cannons," Weizman added.
Weizman noted that "Raful" was one of the most interesting figures in Israeli history. "He will always be remembered as a symbolic fighter that embodies the Jewish people's struggle in the Land of Israel," Weizman said.
A life-long soldier, "Raful" was a legendary IDF paratrooper and the 11th chief of staff during the Lebanon War. In many ways, he personified the gruff, almost boorish Sabra character of the new state.
He was born in the Jezerel Valley moshav of Tel Adashim in 1929. He fought in the Palmach during the 1948 War of Independence was severely wounded in the battle for Jerusalem.
In 1956, he commanded the 890th battalion and was the first to parachute into the Mitla Pass during the Sinai Campaign. He later held key combat roles in subsequent wars and in 1978 was named the 11th chief of general staff.
He was the mastermind behind the 1982 Peace for the Galilee, a war to oust the PLO from Lebanon that later led to an 18-year presence in that country. Eitan was reprimanded by the Khan Commission for not preventing the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Beirut by Phalangist Christian militias...
Life is weird sometimes!
Ashdod was a Philistine city in ancient times (it's where they took the Ark of the Covenant when they captured it: I Samuel 5).
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