Two soldiers were killed today when an Israeli army patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah operatives in the northern Mount Dov region along the border with Lebanon.
The IDF confirmed that at least seven soldiers were wounded in the attack and ruled out the possibility that a soldier had been kidnapped.
The two soldiers were not immediately named. They were identified as a company commander and a combat soldier.
The incident took place in an area of the border that doesn’t have a fence. At the same time, and for over an hour after the attack, IDF positions in the area, as well as on nearby Mount Hermon, were hit with mortar shells.
Israel responded to the attack with artillery strikes in southern Lebanon. Two Lebanese officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel targeted the border villages of Majidiyeh, Abbasiyeh and Kfar Chouba with at least 50 shells.
A Spanish United Nations peacekeeper was killed, Lebanese reports said. Families living on the border of the villages fled further north, fearing they’d be hit, said the officials, who are based in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah said in a statement that a squad from the “fallen martyrs of the Quneitra brigade” had attacked the Israeli convoy in retaliation for an alleged Israeli airstrike near Quneitra, just over the border in Syria, last week that killed at least seven, including an Iranian general and a senior commander in the organization. The statement said it was a “first announcement,” alluding to the possibility of further attacks.
Six soldiers were evacuated to Ziv Hospital in nearby Safed in light to moderate condition, and another wounded was airlifted to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Channel 2 reported.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was holding high-level consultations to mull further responses to the attack. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a tour of the Gaza Strip border region and headed to the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv to join the meeting.
In an initial reaction to the incident, Netanyahu invoked Israel’s massive campaign against Hamas and other groups in the Gaza Strip over last summer: “Anyone who tries to challenge us along the northern border should come and see what happened here, not far from Sderot, in the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli hikers and vacationers in the area of the incident, including in the Hermon ski resort, were ordered to leave the region.
The attack, launched from an area controlled by Hezbollah, comes after repeated threats by the group, which said it would retaliate against Israel for an airstrike earlier in January that killed its top commander in the Syrian Golan Heights, along with an Iranian general and 10 others.
At least two rockets launched from Syrian territory landed in the Golan Heights Tuesday in an attack that Israeli defense officials attributed to Hezbollah. In response, Israel shelled Syrian army positions, and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon issued a stern warning to Hezbollah and its patron Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“The Assad regime is responsible for the fire into Israel, and we will exact a heavy price from any government or organization that violates our borders,” Ya’alon said Wednesday. “We have no intention of ignoring or abiding terrorist attacks on our soldiers and citizens.”
The Mount Dov area has seen multiple cross-border incidents involving Hezbollah in recent years.
Read more: The Times of Israel
{Matzav.com Israel}
The most horrific part of this this story is that, even as Hezbollah was screaming at us for days that it would seek vengeance, the IDF soldiers were patrolling a highly dangerous, UN-fenced section of the border in UNARMORED vehicles. This is how we go on “high alert”??? This is sheer insanity! It’s as bad as having sent that horribly outdated APC (which wasn’t very well armored at all) into the narrow streets of the Shujaiyeh neighborhood (east of Gaza City), resulting in the death of all its occupants.
It hurts so badly to know that there is such lack of preparedness and incompetent decision-making within the IDF command structure, which puts too many chayalim at risk for their lives (Rachmana Litzan). When will we learn that there is NO room for a margin of error as blatant as this. Yes…life and death are in Hashem’s Hands alone. But the hishtadlus that is incumbent upon Klal Yisrael under ALL circumstances was criminally lacking here.
Baruch Dayan haemes
Hamakom yenachem eschem besoch shar avlei tzion veyerushalayim.
When will the Israeli’s stop putting out YouTube videos insulting Islam?
ok that was random