How IDF troops navigate booby-trapped territory in Lebanon

Clearing the terrain requires taking control of every Hezbollah weapon found, many of them stored inside buildings, and either removing, detonating, or destroying them.

By Yaakov Lappin, JNS

The booby-trap blast that killed two Israeli reservists in a building in the Lebanese village of Majdal Zoun on Aug. 5 has thrown a spotlight on one of the most persistent threats facing Israeli troops operating in the security zone: explosive devices hidden in and around structures that Hezbollah has spent years preparing across its Southern Lebanon strongholds.

Maj. (res.) Harel Birenstock, 34, of Nokdim, and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Tamir Vaknin, 33, of Eilat, were killed in the blast, and four soldiers were wounded during a security operation in Majdal Zoun.

JNS has learned that the Majdal Zoun incident occurred not during an offensive mission but during a task in which a force went out to secure an armored bulldozer—a rear-echelon assignment rather than an attack.

The area had already been considered cleared, and the explosive device was not inside a structure.

The IDF is examining whether the explosive device had been planted before the April 16 ceasefire or afterward, as well as how it was triggered—whether by the movement of Israeli forces or by Hezbollah operatives nearby.

In response, the IDF struck Hezbollah terror infrastructure in several areas across Southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities, a command center, and additional terror infrastructure.

A military source told JNS in recent days that Israeli forces in Southern Lebanon, particularly in the area of Majdal Zoun and al-Mansouri, have been operating in terrain saturated with explosive devices.

“Our fighting inside Southern Lebanon, and mainly in this area of Majdal Zoun and al-Mansouri, is saturated with explosive devices. Accordingly, we fight by reduction,” the source said.

This means that before any entry into a structure, forces observe the building, fire on it with a tank, use shoulder-fired missiles against it and scan the interior with drones.

The goal of the procedure is “to reduce the risks in the fighting for the target, to reduce the risk of an enemy or of the presence of an explosive device,” he added.

The source said this reduction process is carried out to such an extent that forces detonate charges and clear the area using armored bulldozers or similarly large equipment meant to trigger any devices already planted there.

“Night after night, time after time, in every raid, we go down and fight in this way,” the source said.

The IDF balances standoff strikes against the need to physically clear terrain, the source said, adding that a great deal can be accomplished from the air or from a distance.

“Last night we were with drones that dropped explosives, and we destroyed structures from a standoff position without entering them,” the source said.

At the same time, he added, clearing the terrain requires taking control of every Hezbollah weapon found, many of them stored inside buildings, and either removing, detonating, or destroying them. Thorough work sometimes still requires entering structures.

The approach combines standoff fire with physical entry rather than relying exclusively on either method.

The source also addressed underground infrastructure, saying some structures are known to have subterranean components, with forces seeking to reach them to destroy what lies beneath.

The source said that over two months of operations, his unit found and destroyed more than eight underground zones. He illustrated the scope of the effort with an account of visiting a building destroyed in the northern part of his unit’s sector.

“I went to visit a house that was destroyed in the north to give a sense of how broad our clearing effort is. I arrived with bulldozers to open up the concrete rubble and get down into the underground level and blow it up so as not to leave it for Hezbollah,” the source explained.

As a rule, the source added, underground infrastructure is difficult to deal with from a standoff position since forces must reach the shaft itself, insert the charge, and detonate it.

On the growing use of robotics, the source said the army does not send troops into a structure or down a suspicious street before a robotic system has gone in first.

Armored robotic vehicles are used to push explosive charges into position for reduction procedures, while a robotic device is sent into a structure ahead of every entry.

On the broader state of the fighting in the sector, the source described a brigade that has nearly completed a full clearing of the area in the face of a very sparse enemy presence.

The source said only a small number of terrorists are estimated to remain in the sector, though an enemy presence certainly exists in more distant villages.

More broadly, the source said one clear finding has been that Hezbollah heavily fortified its second line of villages from the Israeli border, citing Majdal Zoun as an example of “a village that was heavily, heavily fortified” by Hezbollah prior to the IDF’s entry.