Reporting by journalist Inbar Tvizer, Chaim Havshush, father of Staff Sgt. Naveh Havshush who fell in southern Lebanon, recounts his son's final text message hours before the incident: 'There's a chance I'll be home next week — don't tell Mom so she won't be disappointed if I don't end up leaving.' He described Naveh as a devoted hiker who loved the Land of Israel deeply.
Chaim Havshush, father of Staff Sgt. Naveh Havshush who fell in southern Lebanon, shared a deeply personal tribute published Sunday evening by journalist Inbar Tvizer (N12). In it, Havshush recounted the final text message he received from his son hours before the deadly incident: Naveh wrote that there was a chance he would come home next week, but asked his father not to tell his mother so she wouldn't be disappointed if the plan fell through. The tribute arrived on the same day the Havshush family buried Naveh, and follows an earlier interview Chaim gave to Army Radio Sunday morning, during which he also described the agonizing wait to recover his son's body from the damaged tank in a problematic area.
The sequence of reporting Sunday has painted an increasingly full picture of Naveh's final hours and character. At 07:37 Jerusalem, the IDF cleared his name for publication, initially listing him as the fourth soldier killed in the tank incident — by the next update, he was identified as the fifth casualty from the same event. The Binyamin Regional Council then disclosed that Naveh's father received his son's last message at 23:00 Saturday night and that the tank struck its explosive device about an hour and 15 minutes later. By mid-morning, Chaim Havshush's Army Radio interview was published, providing the first on-record family account. The personal tribute tonight, via Tvizer, further corroborates those details with the father's own words. Earlier Sunday, Yehuda Havshush, Naveh's grandfather, eulogized him at the funeral with the line "a grandfather should not bury his grandson," as The Zioneer reported at 18:28 Jerusalem.
As The Zioneer has reported throughout Sunday, Naveh was a tank commander in the 52nd Battalion of the 401st Armored Brigade, from the community of Geva Binyamin (Adam). He planned to attend officer training school. In personal notebooks discovered by his family after his death, Naveh wrote that military service was a privilege, not a burden, and his father described him as a devoted hiker who loved the Land of Israel deeply.
There are no open questions regarding the circumstances of Naveh's death, but the family's private mourning continues. The exact nature of the explosive device and the broader operational context of the unit's mission in southern Lebanon have not been publicly detailed by the IDF beyond the initial incident report.
9 developments
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- DevelopingLetter reveals fallen soldier Naveh Havshush saw military service as a privilege
- StrongGrandfather mourns fallen soldier Naveh Havshush at funeral: 'A grandfather should not bury his grandson'
- DevelopingFallen soldier Naveh Havshush's mother speaks of new life amid grief
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