Elazar Yair Wilensky was 14. He died on Monday when unexploded Hezbollah ammunition detonated during a school trip in the Manara mountain range, roughly 50 to 100 metres from the Lebanese border, according to Maariv. Twenty-four others were injured. Officials had declared the area off-limits in May 2025, but nobody built a fence or put up a sign.
That's the center of this story. It’s about who gets to draw lines on a map and who has to live, or die, on the other side of them.
The State's Monopoly
The Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), which manages the area, told Haaretz that it had designated the dangerous zone off-limits in May 2025, but left it physically accessible, without clear signs or barriers. Two years of war, dozens of evacuated border towns, a site close to a military post that had come under heavy Hezbollah fire—and still the restricted zone existed only on paper. KKL-JNF said it informed the Education Ministry but lacked authority to approve school trips or seal off the area.
The ministry says it approved a route that complied with KKL-JNF restrictions. It acknowledged knowing that KKL-JNF had closed a dangerous route along the Ramim Ridge, then approved an alternative that passed close to another area closed because of unexploded ordnance, where people could still enter. Read that again. One body closes the ground; another approves the route. Between them, a classroom of teenagers walks past the gap. Investigators are now examining whether the students strayed or whether the ministry defined the route wrong. An initial investigation found that nobody had physically sealed or clearly marked the nearby restricted zone.
No one in this chain had the authority to protect the kids, yet every institution in it could approve, restrict or inform. That’s how a bureaucracy distributes responsibility until it evaporates.
What the Kids Were Handed
Students from ORT Ma'alot religious high school found the munition while hiking, according to Haaretz. Some handled it and took photographs. "He was playing with the bomb," one student told Haaretz. "Some of the kids told him to leave it, but no one thought it contained explosives. We continued along the trail and stopped to pray at one point. After the prayer, he played with it again, put it back in his bag, and then there was a massive explosion."
Haaretz columnist Rogel Alpher wrote that students passed the munition around, put it in bags, photographed themselves holding it and sent images to their parents. "At least some staff were aware of what was happening, yet they let it happen," Alpher wrote. "The impression is that they did not guide the students, nor had anyone guided them." He added: "Perhaps they saw it as a war souvenir, a trophy of war." And: "Their tragic complacency is part of the broader complacency that surrounds this blind state."
The education ministry says its pre-trip safety instructions prohibited touching unexploded ordnance and required students to report discoveries. Instructions, in other words, existed. Fences didn't.
Official Advice After the Fact
On Tuesday, the US Embassy in Israel issued a safety warning about unexploded ordnance across extensive areas of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, noting that locations often lack markings. It warned that small, round cluster bomblets may resemble balls or toys, and offered a three-step rule: recognize, retreat, report. Its advice included staying on paved roads and familiar trails and not collecting casings, fragments or souvenirs.
It's decent advice. But it’s advice for civilians navigating a hazard created by armies, issued after a child was already dead. The Israeli military alleged the device was a cluster munition fired by Hezbollah during the war, though investigators haven’t independently established its origin.
The War Under the Soil
The boy's funeral described him as "a child full of joy, a good and beloved friend." Meanwhile, the machinery that produced the ordnance keeps running. The Israeli military continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, having expanded its invasion since fighting with Hezbollah resumed in March. Israeli strikes continue despite a framework agreement signed between Beirut and Tel Aviv in June, about four months ago. On Monday, the same day a schoolboy died, Lebanon's Health Ministry said Israeli attacks over the past three years had killed 8,596 people and wounded 30,660.
The agreement is signed. The strikes go on. The munitions sit in the hills, waiting for the next hiker. Armies fire, ministries approve routes, land agencies close zones on paper, and embassies publish checklists. None of them answer for what’s left in the dirt. The ones who do are fourteen years old.