File image.
On March 21, two Israeli soldiers were wounded when a landmine exploded for unknown reasons near the separation line with Lebanon.
In a statement, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that the landmine exploded during “routine engineering activity,” adding that there was no fear of the incident being an attack. An investigation to find out what set off the mine and why it was not detected by the soldiers had been launched.
The two wounded soldiers were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. One of them was listed in moderate but stable condition, while the other was slightly hurt.
Ali Shoeib, a reporter for the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news outlet Al-Manar, published videos of the aftermath of the incident on Twitter. One of the videos shows a wounded Israeli soldier being carried on a stretcher to a Merkava IV main battle tank. A second video shows a another wounded soldier being walked to a military jeep.
The reporter and a number of Lebanese activists said that one of the wounded Israeli soldiers lost his leg in the landmine blast. They alleged that IDF troops kept looking for the missing leg more than 24 hours after the incident.
The incident came following a rare clash between Lebanese and Israeli soldiers along the separation line. On March 5, Lebanon troops pushed back an IDF patrol that violated the line at the village of Aita al-Shaab in south Lebanon by a meter.
The separation line between Israel and Lebanon is infested with landmines, most of which were planted by Israeli troops a long time ago. The IDF is currently constructing a wall along the line, mainly to limit Hezbollah’s freedom of movement. Work on the line is expected to end within two years.
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