The blast was caused by unexploded ordnance in northern Israel near the Lebanese border.

One person has been killed and 19 others were injured in an explosion in northern Israel near the Lebanese border, according to preliminary official tallies, in an incident that is under investigation.

“I share in the heavy grief of the family of the boy who was killed in the explosion during the trip near the northern border, and I wish a swift and full recovery to all the injured,” Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz posted on X, adding that authorities were looking into the cause of the blast.

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the victim was a 15-year-old who had gone on an annual school trip.

Citing medical sources, the Israeli police earlier said that “the initial suspicion is that it was caused by an unexploded ordnance, as a result of which about 20 people were injured with varying degrees of severity.” The explosion occurred near the community of Neot Mordechai, between Kibbutz Manara and Kibbutz Yiftach.

The incident injured both students and staff from a religious high school as they were on an outing, the municipality of the northern city of Maalot-Tarshiha said.

There is a heavy military deployment in the north of the country and in parts of southern Lebanon as Israel continues attacks it says target the Iran-aligned Hezbollah group.

Thousands of munitions

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank said that some of the injured are described to be in critical condition.

“There is very little specific information as to what happened, what the source of that explosion was, but it’s certainly a reminder that Northern Israel, the upper Galilee and particularly the border with Lebanon remains an area where there is a military operation, with the Israeli military deployed and where thousands of munitions were used over the past 3 years”, Odeh said.

Odeh said the explosion had “mobilised” Israel’s political echelons, with the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu heading to the area, and the Israeli minister of National Security National Ben Gvir canceling a political engagement that was on his agenda.

Tens of thousands of Israelis living in the country’s north were forced to leave the region after Lebanon’s Hezbollah group started firing rockets following Israel’s genocidal 2023 war in Gaza.

In March, Israeli forces started occupying southern Lebanon following a renewal of hostilities after the US – Israel war on Iran. The military said soldiers and helicopters had been dispatched to the scene in northern Israel, a region from which Israeli forces have been pounding Lebanon, whose Hezbollah militants have fired periodic rockets across the border.

Odeh says most residents have not returned because they “did not have the confidence” that the government will be able to protect them.

“They saw the extensive damage that rockets were exacting on their communities and many them, according reports, have not been encouraged to return because the situation remains volatile”, she said.

Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt