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School-trip explosion near Israel’s Lebanon border kills a teenager

A teenager was killed and students and teachers were injured in an explosion on a school outing in northern Israel. Police are investigating whether an unexploded munition detonated in a student’s hands. Emergency teams evacuated the wounded to hospitals. The object’s origin and the time it was fired remain under investigation; initial military suspicions do not establish responsibility.

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Two people stand before a cordon across a rocky hiking path, with differently coloured backpacks in the foreground.

A teenager dies on the school outing

A teenager was killed and students and teachers were injured when an explosion struck a school trip near Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the boy was 15. The municipality of Ma’alot-Tarshiha, a town in northern Israel, said students and staff from a local school were taking part in their annual excursion.[1], [2]

Initial official announcements cited by Al Jazeera gave 19 injured. United Hatzalah, an Israeli emergency response organisation, reported three seriously injured and at least ten with light or moderate injuries. These preliminary counts came from different emergency and official statements. Police said the wounded were evacuated to three nearby hospitals, while Magen David Adom, Israel’s ambulance service, dispatched ambulances, intensive care vehicles and a helicopter.[1], [2]

Some of the injured were in critical condition, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank. Substantial security activity followed the explosion in the border area.[1]

Police investigate an unexploded munition

Police sent bomb disposal specialists to the area near Yiftah and Manara, two settlements in northern Israel close to the Lebanese border. Northern district police commander Meir Eliyahu said the suspicion was that an unexploded munition had detonated in a student’s hands. The military’s initial examination pointed to a Hezbollah munition; Hezbollah is the Lebanese armed movement involved in fighting with Israel. When the object was fired remained unclear.[2]

The military dispatched soldiers and helicopters. Israel’s education ministry expressed sympathy for the victims and their families. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the education minister visited the wounded and their relatives at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, northern Israel, on Monday evening. Netanyahu instructed the military to reinforce warnings prohibiting people from touching unexploded ordnance.[1], [2]

Fighting has left unexploded ordnance in the border region

Three years of fighting have involved large quantities of munitions in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, where residents were previously displaced. A US-brokered ceasefire agreed in late June was intended to enable the Lebanese army to deploy and Israeli forces to withdraw gradually. Israel withdrew from two small areas near the yellow line marking its occupied zone, but further implementation largely stalled and Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon continued.[1], [2]

References

  1. News sourceAl JazeeraExplosion during school trip in northern Israel kills a child↩1↩2↩3↩4↩5
  2. News sourceCNNSchool-trip explosion near Israel’s Lebanon border kills a teenager↩1↩2↩3↩4↩5
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