Four soldiers have been killed and 58 injured in a drone strike targeting an army base in Northern Israel on Sunday, The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said. It was the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
The IDF added seven soldiers had been severely injured in the attack on a base “adjacent to Binyamina” – a town around 20 miles (33km) to the south of Haifa.
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the attack, which it said targeted a training camp of the IDF’s Golani Brigade in the area, which is based between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
The armed group’s media office said the strike was in response to Israeli attacks in Southern Lebanon and Beirut on Thursday.
Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. With Israel’s advanced air defence systems, it is rare for so many people to be hurt in aerial attacks, but Israel has struggled to deal with Hezbollah’s newly deployed Iranian-made drones in the past 12 months; they are small and hard to detect as they emit only weak radar signals.
Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily in the year since the war in Gaza began, and fighting has escalated.
The attack followed news that the US is sending terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence battery to Israel, reportedly along with about 100 US troops, deepening American involvement in the crisis-hit region. The last time the US sent such a missile system to the Middle East was in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s attacks on Israel on 7 oct. last year. The Pentagon said a Thaad was deployed to Southern Israel for drills in 2019, the last and only time it was known to be there.
When asked why he had decided to give permission for the deployment, the US president, Joe Biden, said: “To defend Israel”, which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on 1 oct.
The Pentagon spokesperson Maj Gen Patrick Ryder described the deployment as part of “the broader adjustments the US military has made in recent months” to support Israel and defend US personnel from attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.
US officials did not say how quickly the system would be deployed to Israel, and an Israeli army spokesperson declined to provide a timeline for the arrival of the system.
Early on Monday, Hezbollah threatened Israel with more attacks if its offensive in Lebanon continues.
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