The Israeli Air Force said it will carry out a thorough investigation after a half-ton bomb accidentally fell off a fighter jet and landed in the Gaza border community of Yated.
According to authorities, an unexploded Israeli Air Force bomb was discovered on May 17 in Yated village, near the Gaza border. The bomb appears to have fallen off of a fighter jet during operations over Rafah.
It noted the munition did not explode and was safely collected by Israeli forces.
The authorities did not specify the type of bomb or the fighter jet that may have dropped it. However, the photos of the fallen munition reveal that it was close to residential areas and may have jeopardized the safety of the locals had it exploded. It would have caused substantial human and material losses to the Israeli settlement.
“The ordinance did not explode. This is an unusual event, the circumstances of which will be examined in depth,” the Israel Defense Force (IDF) said in a statement. Soon after the munition was spotted, an Air Force engineering team was dispatched to the location which instantly began an in-depth investigation of the incident.
The IDF said, “The investigation will be presented to the commander of the Air Force. The fallen ordinance is now being collected by IDF forces and will be evacuated later. The public is asked to stay away from the area until the end of the security forces’ activities.”
The IDF described the incident as “unusual,” and that the circumstances surrounding it “will be examined in depth.”
Earlier this month, a new controversy broke out as Israel’s closest ally, the United States, announced that it had stopped sending bombs to Israel amid concerns that a significant ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was continuing. US officials said that the consignment that was held back consisted of 2,000-pound bombs.
Reports suggested that the decision to stop the supply of what were probably MK-84s, which is a 2,000-pound/900-kilogram American general-purpose bomb, coincides with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s increasing resolve to carry out a deadly ground offensive in Rafah in defiance of US warnings.
