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Oded Sharon

Maya, Oded’s niece, tells about him in front of Birthright (Taglit) group.

 

I want to tell you about my uncle, Oded, who was killed in an operational activity while working in the Israeli Secret Service.

Oded is my father's younger brother, who was killed 13 years ago, when he was only 36 years old.

Oded was a field coordinator in the Gaza Strip. A filed coordinator is a field role that combines recruitment and operation of agents, operations management and intelligence gathering.

On the morning of Tuesday, January 18, 2005, there was a report that “someone” was planning to transfer “something” from the northern Gaza Strip to the south. No one knew who was the "someone" and what was the "something", but they knew it was happening that day.

That morning, a force of Israel Security Agency and IDF soldiers were deployed at the Orhan checkpoint in order to locate that "someone" and to question him about that "something" and his intentions.

The Orhan checkpoint was located in the center of the Gaza Strip on the main traffic route between the north and south of the strip. At the checkpoint, a check-in area was set up, which a few dozen vehicles were brought in, to check the vehicles and their passengers.

At noon, it was found that the wanted man was in the area of the checkpoint.

The traffic on the route stopped and was directed into the area of the checkpoint. Several dozen vehicles, including about 300 people, were detained for questioning.

Here Oded's role comes in - his job was to find and locate the same activist among all the people who were in the Orhan, when the information he had with him was scarce.

For several hours, Oded, with the help of IDF soldiers with him, investigated the people who were detained at the checkpoint, and tried to identify the activist.

Around 5:00 PM, Oded informed the headquarters that he had identified the wanted person. Now, he had to find the thing they were talking about. They continued to try and search for the object in the cars, the bags, and on other people who were there. But they didn’t find anything.

After a while, it was decided to take the suspect for a personal investigation. They checked him several times from a distance, and the tests revealed that the suspect was "clean."

At this moment, there was no concern that the suspect was dangerous or a ticking bomb, but only a messenger delivering an object.

Oded walked over and led the suspect to the investigation area in a remote corner of the checkpoint. When the suspect was at the entrance of the investigation compound, he realized that Israeli forces suspected him… a few moments passed and then it happened… he blew himself up.

Oded, who was standing about one meter away, was killed on the spot. It turned out that the suspect's pants were full of explosives that could not be found.

Oded left behind a wife and three children, with his youngest son only a year and a half old.

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