Nissan Miram, a 42 year-old foreign worker from Thailand, was killed Friday morning while working as a tractor driver in an agricultural area near Kibbutz Yaron in the Upper Galilee. Unexploded Hezbollah ordnance that apparently was not evacuated from the area caused his death.
A Magen David Adom (MDA) team called to the scene pronounced the foreign worker dead. His friend, also a Thai citizen, was seriously injured.
Initially, the IDF believed that the two had been hit by anti-tank fire. A security source said that the details were continuing to be examined. The IDF Spokesperson said: "The initial investigation carried out indicates that the civilians who were injured earlier this morning in the Yaron area were injured as a result of the explosion of unexploded ordnance in the area, and not as a result of an anti-tank missile that crossed from Lebanese territory, as reported earlier today."
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel said of the incident in Yaron and the death of the foreign worker: "It is forbidden by law to employ foreign workers in evacuated communities. I spoke this morning with the Director General of the Population and Immigration Authority following the murder of a Thai worker from a Hezbollah rocket and agreed on stricter enforcement against employers of foreign workers in the evacuated communities. The duty to protect the lives of every person trumps the opening of drips in an evacuated agricultural area."
