...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers..., the first deaths announced in the area since the start of a ceasefire with Hezbollah 12 days ago.
The four reservists, all from the same battalion, "fell in combat" on Sunday, the military said without giving further details.
The Israeli army said the soldiers were killed when a tunnel they were in collapsed following its detonation, adding that their bodies were pulled out after a 12-hour rescue operation.
| Not sure why Naharnet thinks there were no further details — here are the details: |
[IsraelTimes] Reservists believed to have triggered unmarked munitions left by other IDF soldiers, setting off Hezbollah cache and bringing tunnel down on troops
Four Israeli reservists were killed in an operational accident in southern Lebanon Sunday, when munitions in a Hezbollah tunnel they were in exploded, the army said on Monday.
The deadly incident underlined lingering dangers for troops in south Lebanon, despite the ceasefire, as the military campaign against the Iran-backed terror group wraps up.
The four were all serving with the 226th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade’s 9263rd Battalion when they were killed in the blast, while searching for weapons in the Labbouneh area of southern Lebanon. Their bodies were trapped inside a destroyed tunnel for hours, until rescuers could reach them.
While carrying out searches in the Labbouneh area on Sunday afternoon, troops found the entrance to a Hezbollah tunnel where weapons were apparently being stored.
According to an initial IDF probe, as the troops entered the tunnel, there was a large explosion, which in turn caused the Hezbollah weapon stockpile to detonate, bringing the walls and ceiling of the underground passage down on top of the troops. The collapse trapped the four soldiers; rescue operations to extract their bodies took some 12 hours.
The military assessment found that the first blast was likely caused by explosives previously left behind by other Israeli forces who had operated there, which were unknown to the soldiers who entered the tunnel.
The IDF is investigating why the soldiers were not aware of the explosives placed there, including whether the troops who planted them marked the tunnel as rigged on the IDF’s mapping system.
The military is also investigating other avenues, including whether some other trigger caused the Hezbollah weapons in the tunnel to go off, like a booby trap — though that is considered less likely.
The four were named as Maj. (res.) Evgeny Zinershain, 43, from Zichron Yaakov; Cpt. (res.) Sagi Ya’akov Rubinshtein, 31, from Kibbutz Lavi; Master Sgt. (res.) Binyamin Destaw Negose, 28, from Beit Shemesh; and Sgt. First Class. (res.) Erez Ben Efraim, 25, from Ramat Gan.
Zinershain was a company commander and Rubinshtein was a platoon commander.
The deaths bring Israel’s toll in over a year of fighting on and around its northern frontier to 80 soldiers, most of them killed in cross-border skirmishes, drone and missile attacks on Israel, and during close quarters combat during the ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.