In attack drone to the military base in the north Israel, about 30 kilometers south of Haifa, four Israeli soldiers were killed, seven were seriously wounded, and more than 60 people were injured, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced. It was the single deadliest attack on Israel since October 7 last year.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the target was the IDF's Golani Brigade training camp in the Binyamin City area, located between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Hezbollah's media office said the attack was in response to Israeli attacks on Thursday in southern Lebanon and Beirut and noted that it targeted the camp using a "swarm of drones," the BBC reports.
A "relatively unsophisticated" drone
The Israeli emergency aid Magen David Adom announced that 61 people were injured in the attack, three of them in critical condition. It was stated that 37 injured were transferred to eight regional hospitals, either by ambulance or by helicopter.
Israel's wartime censorship rules initially prevented the media from reporting exactly where or what the target was, before the IDF confirmed it was the Binyamin base.
Some Israeli media reported that the base was hit by a "relatively unsophisticated" drone launched from Lebanon - a weapon that does not appear to have triggered early warning alarms.
Israeli tanks broke through the entrance to the UN base
Throughout Sunday evening, television reports, social media posts and online reports showed footage of ambulances, including helicopters, taking victims to hospitals across northern Israel.
Details are still scarce, but it appears that many of the injured were in the communal canteen at the time of the attack and were taken completely by surprise.
The alarm did not sound.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack shortly after it released an audio message from its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on its members to "defend their people, their family, their nation, their values โโand their dignity," CNN reported.
Earlier on Sunday, the IDF said it had intercepted a drone launched from Lebanon, without specifying where, so it was unclear whether the interception was part of this attack.
Israel's air defense systems are usually very reliable, but this time there were no reports of alerts in the Binyamin city area at the time of the attack, leading to questions about how the drone managed to penetrate so deep into Israeli territory without being detected.
Recipe against "Iron Dome"
Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at the northern Israeli cities of Nahariya and Acre to engage Israeli air defense systems, while simultaneously launching a swarm of drones.
"These drones penetrated Israeli defense radars without detection and reached their target at the training camp of the Golani elite brigade in Binyamin," Hezbollah said.
IDF chief spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military would investigate how the drone got by without raising an alarm at the base.
"The threat of drones is a threat we have faced since the beginning of the war. "We need to improve our defense," he added.
The US is sending the THAAD anti-missile system to defend Israel
The United States will supply Israel with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system and send a US military crew to help bolster its air defenses after a missile attack from Iran earlier this month. This system is intended to intercept the destructive ballistic missiles that both Iran and Hezbollah have at their disposal.
A statement from the Pentagon states that US President Joseph Biden ordered the THAAD battery and crew to be sent "to defend Israel", writes the BBC.
The Pentagon pointed out that the deployment of THAAD "underscores the firm commitment of the United States to the defense of Israel and to the defense of Americans in Israel against any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran."
The US previously deployed the THAAD battery to the Middle East after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 last year. THAAD first arrived in Israel in 2019 for an air defense training and exercise.
On October 1, Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel. The Israeli military said most of them had been intercepted, but that a number had reached central and southern Israel.
Israel has not yet said how it will respond to the attack, but Defense Minister Yoav Galan said it would be "lethal, precise and above all surprising."
Iran, in turn, said it would not allow any attack by Israel to go unanswered.
Source: BBC, CNN
