{"id":989881,"date":"2026-08-08T22:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T22:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/989881\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T22:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T22:56:15","slug":"idf-investigates-fatal-southern-lebanon-blast-that-killed-two-soldiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/989881\/","title":{"rendered":"IDF investigates fatal southern Lebanon blast that killed two soldiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

An IDF investigation into the recent death of two reservists<\/a> in an explosion in southern Lebanon will be expanding its scope after it was found that the force of the blast that killed them was unusually strong compared to a standard explosive device, Walla learned on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Maj. (res.) Harel Birenstock, a company commander, and M.-Sgt. (res.) Tamir Vaknin, both of Battalion 2855 of the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, were killed, while four others were severely wounded during a combat mission in the village of Majdal Zoun.<\/p>\n

The incident<\/a> was also examined by Air Force officials, who discovered that several months earlier, a bomb was dropped on a structure more than a hundred meters away from the building where the explosion occurred. However, a professional authority determined that even if an unexploded ordnance were in the area, hitting the building that collapsed was unlikely.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the possibility that it was unexploded ordnance was essentially ruled out at first.<\/p>\n

Several leads were examined in the investigation. Brig.-Gen. Yuval Gaz, commander of the Galilee Division, conducted an in-depth investigation into how the building was cleared of explosive devices.<\/p>\n

The preliminary investigation revealed that the force entered the building after it had been scanned, left it, continued its mission, and when it passed by the building a second time, a powerful explosive device was detonated. The prevailing assessment in the IDF is that it was an old explosive device.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Northern Command confirms that Hezbollah is active in the area and is attempting to challenge the IDF, so it cannot be ruled out that a Hezbollah<\/a> force tampered with the explosive device to target IDF forces operating in the sector.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the investigation remains ongoing and has not yet been finalized by the Head of Northern Command<\/a>, Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo, in order to further examine the findings being gathered in the field by various entities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An IDF investigation into the recent death of two reservists in an explosion in southern Lebanon will be…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":989882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[21885,16479,13855,4783,4784,5022,99,13192,50,54554],"class_list":["post-989881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-explosion","tag-explosive-device","tag-fallen-soldiers","tag-hezbollah","tag-idf","tag-investigation","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-news","tag-paratroopers-brigade"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117062361556555831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/989882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}