Israeli Press
Israel's northern commander hid a Hezbollah drone attack from the public
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Hezbollah flew an explosive first-person-view drone at an Israeli army force in southern Lebanon within the past day, and the head of Israel's Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo, ordered the incident kept from publication, the Israeli news site Ynet reported Friday.
No one was hurt and nothing was damaged. The army confirmed the attack only after Ynet asked about it, then called it another violation of the ceasefire and said it does not publish information that could endanger its forces.
The concealment order followed the deadliest day the front has seen since the truce took hold in June. Two reserve paratroopers of the 55th Brigade, Maj. Harel Birenstock and Sgt. Maj.
Tamir Vaknin, were killed on Wednesday when a booby-trapped building blew up during a search in southern Lebanon, and four more soldiers were seriously wounded. The army is still trying to establish whether the charge was laid before or after the ceasefire began.
Commanders pressed for a heavy response to that blast, in Ynet's account, and Israel's political leadership refused; the army struck a limited set of targets instead. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has since rebuked Milo and instructed that any further incident end in an immediate strike on whatever Hezbollah targets are available.
For Palestinians the northern file is not a separate war. The same cabinet weighing how hard to hit Lebanon is deciding whether to resume strikes in Gaza and how far to let the mediators' roadmap run, and a standing order to answer every incident at once narrows the space in which any ceasefire survives.
