DE Online Desk:
More than 60 people have been injured, several of them critically, in a drone attack in north-central Israel, according to first responders.
There were no immediate official reports of deaths from the attack, but the high number of injuries – with rescue service United Hatzalah saying it “provided assistance to over 60 wounded people” – makes it one of the bloodiest since the war started last October.
The news comes after Hezbollah said Sunday it had fired a swarm of attack drones on an Israeli infantry training camp in Binyamina, a town north of Tel Aviv that lies some 40 miles from the Lebanese border. 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.
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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 Hezbollah statement came shortly after the militant group released an audio message from its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on members to “defend your people, your family, your nation, your values and your dignity.”
CNN cannot verify whether the drone struck an IDF training camp, however, the IDF said Sunday that a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) launched from Lebanon had struck near Binyamina. 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.
Israeli air defence systems tend to be very reliable, but on Sunday, there were no reports of alerts in the Binyamina area at the time of the attack, raising questions of how the drone was able to penetrate so deep into the Israeli territory without being spotted.
The drone attack on Sunday comes two days after another attack in which the IDF said two drones were launched from Lebanon. It said it intercepted one of those drones, but did not specify what happened to the other one. In the attack Friday, warning sirens had activated and while a nursing home in the coastal city of Herzliya, central Israel, was damaged, no casualties were no reported.
Critical injuries reported
In Sunday’s attack, United Hatzalah said helicopters and ambulances had evacuated all the wounded, whose injuries it described as ranging from “critical” and “serious,” to “moderate and light.”
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The Binyamina attack comes almost two weeks after Israel launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon. The IDF has insisted the operation is “localized” and “limited” – even though the reality on the ground suggests it might be preparing for a wider invasion.
The IDF has issued evacuation orders for a quarter of Lebanon’s territory and deployed units from four different IDF divisions to the border area, while also continuing an intense bombardment campaign.
More than 1,500 people have been killed and more than 8,000 injured in Lebanon since September 16, when Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah, according to a CNN tally of Lebanese health ministry statements.
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The injured from Binyamina were transported to hospitals across Israel. The Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in north-central Israel said it was treating 36 casualties from what it described as a “UAV incident,” adding that there were “various degrees of injury.”
Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center in Ramat Gan told CNN it was treating three people injured by an incident in Binyamina, two of whom were in critical condition, while Rambam Hospital in Haifa said it was treating another three people.
The Emek Medical Center in northern Israel said it was treating four injured people. Beilinson Hospital said it was treating a further three and Bnei Zion Medical Center in Haifa also said it was treating three.
