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Itongadol.- Four IDF soldiers were lightly-to-moderately injured by an explosion during an operation on the northern border early Wednesday morning, the IDF Spokesman\’s Office said.
The soldiers were evacuated to hospital for treatment.
The IDF did not give any further information on the incident.
The IDF routinely patrols the border with Lebanon, which has remained largely quiet since the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
A Lebanese security source told Reuters that the incident may have taken place north of the border fence which separates Israeli and Lebanese forces, but on the Israeli side of a UN-designated "blue line" between the two countries.
He said the soldiers may have been wounded by a mine.
Another security source said the explosion was 150 meters (yards) south of the blue line.
Asked about the incident, Andrea Teneti, a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, said he had "no information in relation to our mandate of operations", and he described the situation as calm.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during a tour of a new military base in the South, related Wednesdy morning to the incident in the North, saying that "there is something in common between the South and the North and all the fronts, and that is IDF soldiers who will defend us and our borders. That\’s what hapened last night and we will continue to act responsibly to defend the borders of Israel."
The IDF has increased preparedness in the North in recent months amid the spillover of fighting from Syria\’s civil war which Hezbollah agents in Lebanon are also involved in.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a rare public address on Friday that, "some might think that the elimination of Israel is a Palestinian interest. Yes, it is a Palestinian interest but not just that. It is in the interest of the entire Islamic world, it is in the interest of the entire Arab world and it is also in the national interest for every country in the region."
Nasrallah was speaking on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, marked each year on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in accordance with a tradition established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late ruler of Iran and an implacable foe of Israel.