5 Lebanese troops killed in Hezbollah site munitions blast

Five Lebanese soldiers were killed on Saturday in a blast while removing munitions from a Hezbollah military facility in south Lebanon, a military source told AFP.

"Five soldiers were killed in an explosion... inside a Hezbollah military facility," the source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media, adding that the incident took place as the troops were "removing munitions and unexploded ordnance left over from the recent war" between Israel and Hezbollah.

The army did not immediately issue a statement, but President Joseph Aoun said he spoke to army commander Rodolphe Haykal about a "painful incident" that led to a number of dead and wounded from the army as a result of a munitions explosion as an engineering unit "was working to remove and disable" the ordnance, a presidency statement said.