10 IDF soldiers injured in accident as captured Hezbollah RPG explodes during training

Ten IDF soldiers were moderately or lightly injured in a training accident at a military engineering school in Israel’s south Wednesday evening. 

The explosion occurred at around 9:00 P.M. in a classroom at the Combat Engineering Corps training base (Baha’altz) in the Negev. 

The IDF released a statement about the injury on Thursday morning. 

“Yesterday evening (Wednesday), three soldiers were moderately injured along with seven additional soldiers who were lightly injured as a result of an explosion of weapons in a military training base in southern Israel,” the statement from the IDF Spokesperson’s office said.

“The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment. Their families have been notified. The incident is under review.” 

The initial investigation of the incident found that the explosion occurred during training in one of the classrooms at the base. The training topic was “Learning about enemy munitions.” 

During the training, an RPG rocket recovery from Hezbollah in Lebanon was accidentally fired inside the classroom, towards the door. The rocket went through the door and exploded outside the classroom, injuring the soldiers and damaging the building. 

The IDF seized thousands of Hezbollah weapons during its ground campaign against the terror group in southern Lebanon.

The base commander and other commanders began evacuating the wounded and conducting an initial command debriefing. All of the wounded were evacuated to a nearby hospital in full consciousness by helicopters and military ambulances after an initial treatment by medical teams at the base. 

Alongside the command investigation, a Military Police Investigation team arrived at the scene and began a preliminary investigation of the incident. 

The damage to the building by the explosion is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of shekels. It was also decided to halt training for 24 hours in order to conduct more thorough investigations. 

This is the second time that an explosion involving one of the captured weapons from Hezbollah has taken place.

A few days ago, when the IDF dismantled the Hezbollah weapons display at the Amiad base in the north, a civilian IDF employee who was involved in the dismantling was moderately injured when one of the weapons on display exploded.