Hezbollah drone attack was ‘difficult and painful’, says Israeli military chief

The chief of the general staff of the Israeli army says Hezbollah’s deadly drone strike on an Israeli military target in the occupied territories was “difficult and painful”.

“We are at war and an attack on a training base in the rear is serious with painful results,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi told soldiers during a visit to the Golani Brigade base that was hit.

“We continue to fight and train for upcoming [battles],” he added.

For his part, Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant said the Tel Aviv regime will learn the lessons from the Hezbollah drone strike last night.

“This is a difficult event with painful results,” Gallant said as he visited the Golani Brigade training base. “We must investigate it, study the details and assimilate the lessons in a quick and professional manner.”

The Israeli military 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 64 kilometers (40 miles) from the Lebanese border, late on Sunday.

Four soldiers were killed and more than 60 people injured in the attack, according to first responders and the Israeli military.

The four fatalities were all 19 years old and in infantry training at the base, the Israeli army said, adding that eight other soldiers were severely injured.

According to the Israeli Magen David Adom emergency service, a total of 61 people were wounded in the Hezbollah drone strike, with dozens still hospitalized.

Hezbollah stated it had fired dozens of rockets toward the towns of Nahariya and Acre at the northern side of the occupied lands to engage the so-called Israeli Iron Dome missile systems, while simultaneously launching the drone swarm.

“These drones broke through the Israeli radars without detection and reached its target at the training camp of the elite Golani Brigade in Binyamina,” Hezbollah said.

The Israeli army’s top spokesperson Rear Admiral 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.

In recent weeks, Israel has mounted its bloody aerial assaults on Lebanon, causing the displacement of at least 1.3 million people, more than a fifth of the country’s population.

At least 2,306 people have been killed and 10,698 others injured in Israeli air raids on Lebanon since early October 2023, according to Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry.

Over the same period, the Zionist regime has been waging a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 42,289 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 98,684 others.

Hezbollah has launched retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets and vowed to keep fighting until the regime ends its aggression against Lebanon and Gaza.