IDF probing lack of armor on trucks hit by Hezbollah

Israel’s army said it would investigate why the two vehicles hit by Hezbollah anti-tank missiles in an attack near the border with Lebanon were unarmored Wednesday, after two soldiers were killed and seven more injured in the shooting.

Despite heightened security following last Sunday’s reported Israeli airstrike in the Syrian Golan Heights, the soldiers traveling a mile from the Lebanese border rode in Isuzu D-Max pickup trucks without any special armor.

The convoy was hit by five Russian-made Kornet missiles fired by Hezbollah fighters in a major escalation of tensions along the border.

The IDF said it was looking into whether the unarmored trucks were driving too close to the border.

Route 999, where the incident took place, was open to both civilian and military traffic, but was declared a closed military zone after the attack.

The vehicles’ lack of armor sparked anger in Israel.

IDF spokesperson Moti Almoz refused to respond to inquiries as to why the soldiers were traveling in unarmored vehicles along the road to Ghajar, and asked for patience to await the results of the investigation.

An IDF source who spoke to the Ynet news site said that “the jeep that was hit wasn’t armored, and I don’t think that this has that much significance,” implying that the missiles might have penetrated armored vehicles too.

“We shall investigate this and this won’t absolve us of what happened there,” the anonymous source said. “That [the attack proved fatal because] they rode in that type of vehicle is drawing foregone conclusions.”