October 14, 2026
The repercussions of the recent military confrontation with Hezbollah continue to cast a heavy shadow on the residents of northern Israel, where unexploded ordnance poses a daily threat to the lives of farmers and workers in the orchards and fields adjacent to the Lebanese border, amid official and popular accusations of delay in removing the remnants of war.
In this context, a report prepared by journalist Eli Ashkenazi and published by the Israeli Walla website, shed light on the killing of the boy, Eleazar Yair Vilensky, last Monday. The boy was killed during a school trip for students in grades seven to nine in the Ramim mountain range near the “Yifthah” settlement, as a result of an explosion suspected of being caused by an unexploded ordnance belonging to a cluster bomb previously fired by “Hezbollah,” without the report definitively determining the nature of the shell.
This incident brought to mind the killing of Thai worker Nisant Miram (42 years old), a father of two children, in October 2024. Miram died when he passed his agricultural tractor over unexploded ordnance attributed to “Hezbollah” in the apple orchards of Kibbutz Yaroun, which led to his immediate death and the panic of another worker who was with him. Two months before that incident, six migrant workers were injured in a similar explosion on agricultural land near Metulla.
The testimony of Dr. Yahel Kurlender, the daughter of farmer Tommy Kurlender from the town of Beit Hillel, reflects the extent of the continuing anxiety among farmers. Kurlender explained that rockets fell in the citrus groves owned by her father two years ago, and although some of their remnants have been removed, a site where live ammunition is believed to be present remains untreated. She pointed out that the family identified the site and put a fence around it, indicating that her father repeatedly asked the army to inspect the place, but the concerned authorities merely responded verbally that the object exploded inside the ground and did not pose a danger, refusing to provide a written statement proving that the site was inspected and safe.
Kurlender confirmed that her family is forced to rely on the fence to prevent tractors from passing over the suspicious point, quoting her father as saying: “This is a living orchard. After a year or five years, I will need to uproot the trees there. One day, my grandchildren or the Thai workers may deal with this land, and it may explode.” In this context, the report refers to previous incidents in which civilians, especially children and teenagers, were injured as a result of touching or collecting ammunition left in fields, open areas, and training sites.
In terms of prevention, Israeli institutions have previously organized awareness campaigns in schools and through the media, including warnings urging people to stay away from suspicious objects, not to touch them, and to report them. However, the report pointed out the absence of similar campaigns after the last war, despite the urgent need to survey the lands and remove the deployed munitions.
On the other hand, the tragedy takes on other dimensions on the Lebanese side, where the repercussions of the war are not only limited to displacement, but also extend to the loss of the necessities of life in the affected villages. UNIFIL forces reported that some families have returned to destroyed villages suffering from damaged water and electricity networks, schools and health facilities, while others remain unable to return to their villages near the border due to continuing security risks.
While Israeli fields face the threat of remnants of war left in orchards, Lebanese civilians await the conditions for returning to their villages amid the rubble of destruction, wondering what remains of their areas and how to rebuild livelihoods there.
