Four Israeli soldiers have been k!lled and more than 60 people injured in a Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in central-northern Israel, according to first responders and the Israeli military.
The incident which occurred late Sunday night, October 13, is one of the bloodiest attacks on Israel since the beginning of the war last October.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, launched by Hezbollah hit an army base adjacent to Binyamina, a town north of Tel Aviv that lies some 40 miles from the Lebanese border.
In addition to the four soldiers killed, seven soldiers suffered severe injuries, the IDF said.
According to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service, a total of 61 people were wounded in the attack.
The news comes after Hezbollah said Sunday it had fired a swarm of attack drones on an Israeli infantry training camp in Binyamina.
The Lebanon-based militant group said the attack was in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon Thursday that killed 22 people and injured 117, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Hezbollah said it had targeted the Golani Brigade, an infantry unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that has been deployed in southern Lebanon. The claim of responsibility for the attack came shortly after the militant group released an audio message from its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on its members to “defend your people, your family, your nation, your values and your dignity.”
Earlier on Sunday, the IDF said it had intercepted a Lebanon-launched UAV without specifying where. It was not immediately clear whether this was the same incident that led to the injuries.
Hezbollah said it had fired dozens of rockets toward the northern Israeli towns of Nahariya and Acre to engage Israel’s air defense systems, while simultaneously launching the drone swarm.
“These drones broke through the Israel defense radars without detection and reached its target at the training camp of the elite Golani Brigade in Binyamina,” Hezbollah said.
The IDF’s top spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military would investigate how the drone got through without raising an alarm at the base.
“We will learn from and investigate the incident,” he said in a video statement from the base. “The threat of UAVs is a threat we are dealing with since the beginning of the war. We need an improvement to our defense,” he added.
The Binyamina attack comes almost two weeks after Israel launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon.