Tel Aviv [Israel]: An obsolete and disarmed tank was returned to Israel’s defence establishment after it was stolen from an army training base overnight Tuesday, the army said.
The Military Police in cooperation with the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israel Police opened an investigation into the incident, with two suspects in custody.
The tank was stolen from an IDF training base near the Elyakim Interchange in northern Israel.
A Defense Ministry representative reported the theft to the police and shortly thereafter, Coastal District Police officers located the tank in a junkyard in Nesher, near Haifa.
According to the IDF and the Defense Ministry, the armoured vehicle is the shell of a Merkava Mark II tank that went out of service many years ago. It is without armaments and its systems are inoperable.
The tank was stationed in a firing range that was open to travellers and was used as a stationary tool for military exercises.
Last February, anti-judicial reform protesters stole a Yom Kippur War-era tank from a memorial site on the Golan Heights for use in a demonstration.
Police recovered the armoured vehicle on a flatbed truck near Kibbutz Gadot, just west of the Golan Heights. It had been taken by former soldiers who fought in the 1973 war and intended to use it as a prop in the protests against the government’s legal reform program.
The tank was draped with a large replica of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which was signed by the former IDF soldiers. They also spray-painted the word “Democracy” on the side of the tank.