May 15, 2015
Israel’s Defense Ministry is restocking supplies of locally produced, IM26 hand grenades, proven to withstand a direct hit by enemy fire without exploding.
In last summer’s Gaza war, a paratrooper took an enemy bullet that lodged in the grenade he was carrying “and would have killed him instantly,” Avi Felder, CEO of Israel Military Industries, saidWednesday. “Not only that, it most likely would have killed those operating around him.”
The product is named Eliraz in honor of Eliraz Peretz, an IDF major killed in an August 2010 counterterror operation when an enemy bullet ignited a grenade he was carrying in his vest.