Israel says it’s investigating whether own soldiers killed civilian on Lebanon border
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Damaged buildings and destroyed vehicles following an Israeli airstrike in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut on March 21, 2026.
PHOTO: AFP
JERUSALEM - Israel’s military said it was investigating whether its own fire killed an Israeli civilian near the Lebanese border on March 22, after Hezbollah claimed an attack in the same area.
Israeli emergency workers said earlier on March 22 that a man was killed in a “direct hit” on his car by a rocket from Lebanon, making him the first fatality in the country’s north since the latest round of fighting with Hezbollah broke out.
The Iran-backed militant group said after the incident that its fighters had attacked Israeli soldiers in the same area.
But the Israeli army later announced it was “conducting a comprehensive investigation” into the death.
“The possibility that the incident involved fire originating from IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers is being examined,” the military said in a statement.
Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei in Israeli-US attacks.
Israel has sent troops into Lebanon and carried out extensive airstrikes in the country, while Hezbollah continues to fire rocket barrages across the border. AFP
