Hezbollah drone attack kills four Israeli soldiers
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a military base in northern Israel which killed at least four soldiers and wounded scores of others.
The group said it fired a “swarm of drones” on a base in Binyamina belonging to the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade. The attack was proof of their continued capacity to inflict damage on Israel, even as the latter continues relentlessly bombing Lebanon and attempts to invade it on the ground.
Commenting on the attack, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said it had “full operational control over the incident”.
“We will investigate how a [unmanned aerial vehicle] can breach without warning and hit a base,” he said.
“We are required to provide better protection. We will investigate this incident, learn from it and improve.”
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The attack marked the deadliest assault of that kind on an Israeli base since Israel launched its widespread bombing of Lebanon on 23 September.
The Times of Israel reports that two drones launched by Hezbollah entered Israeli airspace from the sea.
One of them was reportedly shot down off the coast near Haifa, while the other dropped off the radar with Israeli forces losing track of it.
Israeli media says this incident may have been due to the drone flying very close to the ground, with no sirens sounding due to the assumption that it had crashed or been intercepted.
Hezbollah says its attack was in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of central Beirut on Thursday, which killed at least 22 people.
The group then warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people”.
Israel has killed over 2,300 people in Lebanon since clashes with Hezbollah started on 8 October 2023.
Most of these deaths took place since 23 September 2024
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