Four IDF soldiers were killed and 58 others were wounded by a Hezbollah drone strike on a military base near Binyamina in north-central Israel on Sunday night.
The attack was claimed by Hezbollah, which said that it had targeted a training base belonging to the IDF’s Golani Brigade with a “swarm of drones.” The Lebanese terror group touted the deadly attack as proof of its ability to strike Israel even as the military forges ahead with its ground operation against Hezbollah in south Lebanon.
The drone impacted shortly before 7 p.m., the IDF said. Hebrew media reports indicated that it struck a dining hall as the troops were gathering to eat inside the base.
The names of the four soldiers killed in the attack were not immediately cleared for publication. Seven more soldiers were seriously wounded, the IDF said, and another 14 were suffering from moderate injuries.
In a statement shortly after midnight, IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that the circumstances surrounding the incident were being examined, as the drone had failed to set off any warning sirens in Israel.
“The IDF has full operational control over the incident,” Hagari said, urging the public to refrain from spreading rumors about the attack while the facts were still being established. “We will investigate how a UAV can breach without warning and hit a base,” he said. He added that Israel has faced the threat posed by UAVs “since the beginning of the war.”
“We are required to provide better protection,” he said. “We will investigate this incident, learn from it and improve.”