‘IDF was warned of border strike ahead of Wednesday attack’
Channel 10 report says Israeli military moved checkpoint as precaution, but vehicles were hit and two soldiers killed nonetheless
The IDF reportedly received advanced warning that Hezbollah was planning an attack in the Mount Dov area ahead of Wednesday’s incident in which two soldiers were killed and seven injured there.
According to an unsourced report by Channel 10, one of the possible scenarios the Israel Defense Forces was warned about was a cross-border missile attack from Lebanon. In spite of the warnings, the report said, an army convoy carrying Givati Brigade commanders visiting the area along the border was not canceled.
Two soldiers were killed in the attack — company commander Captain Yochai Kalengel, 25, from Har Gilo; and Sgt. Dor Nini, 20, from Shtulim — and seven were injured.
Fearing an attack, the IDF relocated a military checkpoint outside the village of Ghajar by a few hundred meters, to what was meant to be a more secure spot, the TV report said. But the new location was also visible from Lebanon, leaving military vehicles that gathered at the checkpoint vulnerable to Wednesday’s attack.
Kalengel and Nini, who were buried Thursday, were riding in one of the vehicles that was hit by the first of five Kornet guided anti-tank missiles fired by Hezbollah. Other soldiers in the convoy evacuated their vehicles when the first missile struck, preventing further loss of life.
The missiles were said to have been fired from a distance of some 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles), Channel 10 said, the maximum range of the Kornet.
The vehicles hit by the missiles were unarmored IDF pickup trucks, and the army said Wednesday it would investigate why they were permitted to travel so close to the border, despite heightened security in the north.
The IDF raised its alert levels following last Sunday’s reported Israeli airstrike on the Syrian Golan Heights, in which 12 people were killed including senior Hezbollah terrorists and an Iranian general.
