IDF officer injured by landmine in Golan
Woman’s condition is described as stable; army opens investigation into explosion
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJudah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
A young IDF officer was injured Wednesday in a landmine explosion in the Golan Heights.
She was treated at the scene and rushed by helicopter to Haifa’s Rambam hospital.
The explosion occurred while the officer was involved in routine work along a fence near the Saar River.
The cause of the explosion weren’t initially clear, and the IDF immediately opened an investigation into the circumstances. Initial suggestions were that the mine might have been dislodged in recent bad weather.
Her status was stable and there was no apparent threat to her life.
The Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War, is littered with landmines, although many have been removed and minefields have largely been demarcated by a network of fences and warning signs.
Still, accidents involving landmines occur there once every few years.
Daniel Yuval, then 10 years old, lost his leg in 2010 in a mine explosion during a hike in the Golan Heights. In May 2013 soldier Roi Alphi died while clearing a minefield in the Golan Heights, but that was not what caused this incident.
In 2011 the Knesset created the Minefield Clearance Law, which forces Israel to create an infrastructure to remove unnecessary landmines.
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