At the funeral of Sergeant Itai Chen, whose body was returned last week to be buried in Israel, his family revealed on Sunday morning a recording of the radio communication from the tank he was in on October 7, 2023, during clashes with Palestinian fighters. The recording was published by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
At the beginning of the recording, a soldier is heard saying: “You can get into the vehicles, come on… come on, press the fuel (pedal), press the fuel. There could be fighters at any moment, comrades.” Then, an announcement is heard in the background: “Commander, commander, we are at war,” as reported by RT.
Later, the sound of the tank is heard in the recording as it runs over an explosive device, but the soldiers were not injured. Then one of the soldiers says: “Listen, what is this event…”, and his companion replies: “What a crazy event. What they will try to do now is get those in the command room out and kidnap them. Okay?”
At that moment, the soldiers in the radio communication described the approach of many Palestinian fighters to the tank, and shouts began: “Come on, move straight to crush them… move towards them, crush them, right, do you see them?” Finally, the sound of an explosion is heard: “What is this, stop, what is this? Is anyone hurt? Peretz!”
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the four members of the tank’s crew, from “Peretz’s crew,” three of whom were kidnapped to Gaza, were Commander Daniel Peretz, who was buried last month; Matan Angrest, who was released alive in the last exchange deal; Itai Chen, whose body was returned from Gaza and buried this morning. Their teammate, Sergeant Tomer Leibovitch, was killed in the battles.
