A look into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula from the Israeli side of the border. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Soldiers from an elite IDF tracking unit recently found and rescued a deer caught in the Israel-Egypt border fence.

According to Hebrew news site Mako, the soldiers came upon the deer while on a routine patrol in the Negev Desert. The animal was trapped in barbed wire and bleeding from its injuries.

The soldiers had been given special training to deal with such situations, as animals are frequently caught in the border fence, and as a result succeeded in extricating the deer and saving its life.

A soldier involved in the rescue was quoted as saying, “In the context of our routine border operations, we identified a wounded animal. We approached and saw that it was a deer caught in the fence.”

“It was bleeding into the sand,” added the soldier. “It was an unpleasant sight, my heart was pained for the poor animal. We cut the fence and freed it and it immediately started to run. If we hadn’t been there it would not have been able to free itself and probably would have died.”