Two men in their 40s arrested for stealing IDF tank

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 Coastal District Police officers located the tank in a junkyard in Nesher, near Haifa.

According to the IDF and the Defense Ministry, the armored vehicle is the shell of a Merkava Mark II tank that went out of service many years ago. It is disarmed and its weapons systems are inoperable.

The tank was stationed in a firing range that was open to travelers 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 armored 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.