One person was killed and 19 others were injured in an explosion in northern Israel close to the Lebanese border on Oct. 12, 2026, according to preliminary official tallies, and the incident is under investigation. The victim was 15 years old and had gone on an annual school trip, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said. Students and staff from a religious high school were among the injured, according to the municipality of the northern city of Maalot-Tarshiha.
Police, citing medical sources, said earlier that the initial suspicion was that the blast was caused by unexploded ordnance. About 20 people were injured with varying degrees of severity, they said. The explosion occurred near the community of Neot Mordechai, between Kibbutz Manara and Kibbutz Yiftach.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said on X that he shared “in the heavy grief of the family of the boy who was killed in the explosion during the trip near the northern border,” and wished “a swift and full recovery to all the injured.” He added that authorities were looking into the cause of the blast.
Saar said the victim was 15 years old and had been on an annual school trip. The municipality of Maalot-Tarshiha said the incident injured students and staff from a religious high school while they were on an outing.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said some of the injured were described as being 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. Prime Minister Netanyahu was heading to the area, while National Security Minister Ben Gvir cancelled a political engagement on his agenda, she said.
There is a heavy military deployment in northern Israel and in parts of southern Lebanon as Israel continues attacks it says are aimed at Hezbollah, the group aligned with Iran. The military said soldiers and helicopters had been sent to the scene in northern Israel, a region from which Israeli forces have been striking Lebanon and whose Hezbollah militants have fired periodic rockets across the border.
Tens of thousands of Israelis living in the north were forced to leave the region after Hezbollah started firing rockets following the 2023 war in Gaza, which Al Jazeera has described as genocidal. In March, Israeli forces began occupying southern Lebanon after a renewal of hostilities following the war on Iran involving the US and Israel.
Odeh said most residents had not returned because they “did not have the confidence” that the government would be able to protect them.
“They saw the extensive damage that rockets were exacting on their communities and many [of] them, according [to] reports, have not been encouraged to return because the situation remains volatile,” she said.
The cause of the explosion remains under investigation. The blast has highlighted the continuing volatility along Israel’s border with Lebanon, where military operations are ongoing and many displaced residents have yet to return home.
