An Israeli soldier was killed Saturday on patrol in southern Lebanon, after he inadvertently triggered a mine.
Cpl. Yuval Ratig, 18, of Kfar Azar stepped on a tripwire which detonated the bomb, apparently planted by anti-Israel guerrillas. Ratig was killed instantly.
The bomb went off as Ratig’s paratroop unit crossed the slopes of the hill on which the ruins of the ancient Beaufort crusader castle stand in the eastern sector of the border security zone.
Ratig had just completed his introductory series of parachute jumps and was on his first operational patrol when he died.
He was the fifth Israeli soldier killed this year by roadside bombs in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army reported recently that approximately 40 such bombs have been discovered this year. Most of these bombs were defused or neutralized without causing any casualties or damage.
The bomb blast was the latest of a series of clashes involving Israeli forces in recent days.
On Friday morning, Israeli helicopters attacked a base belonging to Ahmed Jabril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in the Ain Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon.
Lebanese reports said that at least one Jabril supporter was killed and two others wounded in the attack on a building used as a command post by the PFLP-GC. Lebanese army troops were reported to have fired at the helicopter, but missed.
In a separate incident, Israeli forces were reported by the Lebanese media as firing four tank rounds Saturday near the site where the 400-odd Palestinians deported by Israel in December had gathered near the crossing point into the security zone.
The group had organized a march toward the crossing point from their tent camp to protest the U.S.-backed Middle East peace talks.
The shots, which landed some 1,000 yards from where the demonstrators were standing, were apparently intended to warn them not to approach the border area. The move appeared to be successful, since deportees withdrew to their tent camp.
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