A tunnel shaft collapsed in the central Gaza Strip, trapping IDF Colonel Golan Vach, the military reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, the incident occurred during operational activities to investigate and dismantle underground infrastructure near Netzarim.
Colonel Vach, a reserve officer, was reportedly evacuated to a hospital for further medical treatment and is currently in stable condition.
Vach, commander of the IDF Home Front Command's National Rescue Unit, has assisted in numerous rescue and humanitarian missions worldwide, including the collapse of the Champlain Towers in Florida in 2021 and the massive earthquakes in Turkey in 2023 for which he received a medal from the Turkish state.
The 50-year-old IDF veteran resides in Kibbutz Beit Rimon in northern Israel. Since the start of the war, Vach has been actively involved, initially addressing the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacre and later in combat operations in the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Col. Vach reflected, "The music festival was the most difficult scene I've ever witnessed. With twenty years of experience in natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, and as a combat officer in Lebanon and Hebron, I've seen it all. This was something else. Their goal was not just to massacre but to humiliate."
In a new interview with the Jewish Journal, Col. Vach elaborated, “For the first three weeks, we focused on dealing with the aftermath of the disaster, along with the rest of the IDF and the country. We evacuated all the bodies and then began searching for the missing. Many of the missing were not found due to being burned, so we conducted house-to-house searches for remains.”