Five soldiers killed, 19 injured in rocket attack on troops in southern Lebanon

Five Israeli reserve soldiers were killed during fighting with Hezbollah operatives in southern Lebanon on Thursday night and 19 others were wounded, some of them seriously, the IDF said on Friday,

The slain IDF reservists were named as:

• Maj. (res.) Dan Maori, 43, from Beit Yitzhak-Sha’ar Hefer.
• Cpt. (res.) Alon Safrai, 28, from Jerusalem.
• Warrant Officer (res.) Omri Lotan, 47, from Bat Hefer.
• Warrant Officer (res.) Guy Idan, 51, from Shomrat.
• Master Sgt. (res.) Tom Segal, 28, from Ein HaBesor.

They all served with the 8th Armored Brigade’s 89th Battalion, of which Maori was deputy commander.

According to an initial IDF probe, Hezbollah operatives inside a southern Lebanese village attacked the building in which the troops were accepting logistics supplies.

A barrage of rockets was fired at the meeting point for the supply of equipment, one of which hit near the building where the soldiers were standing.

Members of the logistics convoy were also hurt.

Among the 19 injured, four soldiers were listed in serious condition.

The wounded reservists, along with another reservist who was seriously injured in fighting in south Lebanon on Friday morning, were evacuated to hospitals for treatment.

Idan was the cousin of Tsahi Idan, who is being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza after he was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, Israeli journalist and October 7 survivor Amir Tibon wrote on X.

Having already reached the age where he was no longer required for reserve duty, Idan had volunteered to serve.

“[Guy] won’t get to see [Tsahi] come home from captivity in Gaza,” a relative told the Ynet news site.

Amid the fighting in southern Lebanon, where troops have been working to push back Hezbollah forces from the border to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from northern communities, the IDF said on Friday that two Hezbollah tunnels were recently demolished by combat engineers.

The sites were located by reservists with the Carmeli Brigade.

One of the tunnels, which served as an underground command center, was located dozens of meters below a Lebanese village. The IDF said that several Hezbollah operatives were holed up in the site and were killed.

Another tunnel, found by troops close to the border, served as a weapons depot for Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, and would have been used in a planned invasion of Israel, the military said.

It added that both of the tunnels were demolished.

Separately, the military said that reservists seized dozens of Hezbollah weapons during their operation in southern Lebanon, including 11 trucks packed with anti-tank missiles, launchers, grenades, and assault rifles.

Three journalists killed in overnight airstrike

Overnight in southeast Lebanon, Lebanese media outlets said three journalists were killed and several others were wounded in an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian border, an incident which the country’s information minister branded as a “war crime.”

The pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen news outlet said that camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida were killed while the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV said camera operator Wissam Qassim was killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region.

There was no immediate comment from the IDF on the incident.

The strike targeted a group of bungalows in Hasbaya that had been rented out by several media outlets for field reporters covering the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, local media outlets reported.

Local news station Al Jadeed aired footage showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “PRESS,” covered in dust and rubble.

Reporters from other media organizations including Al-Jadeed, Sky News Arabic and Al Jazeera English were also in the bungalows at the time of the strike.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary accused Israel of deliberately…