Chaim Havshush, father of Staff Sgt. Naveh Havshush who fell in southern Lebanon, told the Israel Hayom website that IDF commanders visiting his home described the operation as an offensive strike on a key Hezbollah underground command post — contradicting initial reports that portrayed Israel as passive under a ceasefire. According to a senior officer cited by Galei Tzahal, the target was the main headquarters of Hezbollah's Badr unit in the Ali Taher ridge area.
In a piece published Friday on Israel Hayom, journalist Ariel Kahana reports from the shiva of fallen soldier Staff Sgt. Naveh Havshush at his family home in Geva Binyamin-Adam. Chaim Havshush, a deputy battalion commander in the IDF's Yiftach Brigade with hundreds of reserve days, told Kahana that the narrative circulating in Israeli media earlier in the week — that Hezbollah was actively attacking and IDF troops were frozen in place under Trump-era ceasefire orders — did not match the operational brief he received from visiting IDF commanders.
According to the commanders, the tank platoon led by Naveh Havshush was at the spearhead of an Israeli offensive to capture an underground tunnel network on the Ali Taher ridge. A senior IDF officer defined the target as "an unprecedented strategic infrastructure, the nerve center of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon — the main headquarters of Hezbollah's Badr unit," as quoted by military correspondent Doron Kadosh on Galei Tzahal.
The funeral was held Sunday, June 21. As The Zioneer has reported (June 19), Naveh Havshush, 20, was a tank commander from Geva Binyamin and the fifth soldier killed in the tank incident in southern Lebanon. The version of events now public — that the IDF actively attacked a Hezbollah command center during a ceasefire period — was not part of the initial official statements. Chaim Havshush told the reporter: "Naveh didn't die for nothing. He paid the heaviest price so we could continue to live and thrive in our land."
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