Lebanese media outlets on Friday ran previously unseen footage of the abduction of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah operatives in 2006. Although the two were always believed to have been killed in the raid, their deaths were not confirmed until their bodies were returned to Israel two years later.
The raid took place on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah operatives ambushed two IDF vehicles on maneuvers along the Lebanese border. As well as Goldwasser and Regev, three other reservists were killed. The attack sparked the Second Lebanon War.
In 2016, Lebanon's Hezbollah-affiliated al-Mayadeen television marked 10 years since the 2006 war with a series about it. The series promised to reveal "unseen footage and photographs" of Goldwasser and Regev.
It ran footage showing the IDF patrol in the minutes before it was attacked by Hezbollah members at 8:40 a.m. In the clip, the terrorist commander can be heard issuing instructions about the importance of destroying both vehicles.
The series also showed Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh – who was assassinated in Damascus in February 2008 – observing training sessions of the same cell that carried out the ambush.
The new footage released Friday shows the actual ambush, including the explosions that took out the IDF Hummers, and Israeli soldiers rushing to engage the Hezbollah operatives. It also shows the terrorists fleeing the scene, presumably with the bodies of the two Israelis.
