An explosion near the Lebanese border during an Israeli school trip has killed one teenager and injured others, Israeli emergency officials said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an initial investigation by soldiers at the scene showed that the explosion was caused by an unexploded Hezbollah bomb that fell in the area. It is unknown when it was fired. Photos released by the IDF showed military helicopters evacuating patients for treatment.
“We suspect that apparently some kind of unexploded bomb fell into the hands of the students and detonated,” Deputy Police Chief Meir Eliyahu, commander of Israel’s northern region, said, according to Reuters.
The municipality of Ma’arot Tarshiha identified the deceased teenager as Elazar Yair Wilensky, a ninth-grader and the youngest of five children.
In a statement released by the city, his family said he was “a child who embraced life. He was smart, bright, joyful, a good and loving friend, and his future was still a long way off.”
The explosion left three people seriously injured and at least 10 others with mild to moderate injuries, Israel’s emergency response agency United Hazara said. Police said the injured were evacuated to three hospitals in the area.
The municipality of Ma’arot Tarshiha in northern Israel said in a statement that students and staff were participating in a local school’s annual field trip when the explosion occurred. The Ministry of Education said, “This is an extremely difficult incident, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families.” Commissioner Daniel Levy told Reuters: “Unfortunately, this is a very serious incident in which children who were on a field trip were injured.”
On Monday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, together with Israel’s Education Minister, visited the injured and their families at Ramban Hospital in Haifa. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the Israel Defense Forces to strengthen the ban on contact with unexploded ordnance.
Immediately after the explosion on Monday afternoon, Israeli police announced that their initial suspicions were an unexploded ordnance explosion along the border near the villages of Iftaha and Manara. Police said bomb disposal experts were sent to investigate the cause of the explosion.
Israel’s emergency response service, Magan David Adom (MDA), said it was a “complex incident” as it sent numerous teams to the scene. “We quickly dispatched a large force to the scene, including an ambulance, a mobile intensive care unit (MICU), and an MDA helicopter, which was also scrambled,” said MDA regional director Itzik Shushan.
A U.S.-brokered ceasefire in late June was supposed to end months of conflict in southern Lebanon, paving the way for the deployment of Lebanese troops and a gradual withdrawal of the IDF. Israel has withdrawn from two small areas along the so-called Yellow Line, which demarcates the Israeli-occupied territory, but further progress on the agreement has largely stalled.
Israel continues to carry out regular attacks, destroying entire villages in southern Lebanon and attempting to dislodge Hezbollah from the region.
