A Hezbollah drone struck the Binyamina area on Sunday evening, wounding around 67 people, with four potentially mortally wounded, five seriously wounded, another 14 more lightly wounded but hospitalized, and another approximately 20 lightly injured without need for hospitalization, according to Magen David Adom (MDA) and the IDF.
The UAV was sent from Lebanon under the cover of a Hezbollah rocket barrage.
Three UAVs were launched toward Israel, with two shot down, but one of the UAVs penetrated deep into Israel, crashing in the Binyamina area. No warning sirens were activated, which the IDF will be probing.
Later, army radio reported the following updates:
“New details have emerged from the preliminary investigation into the UAV strike in the Wadi Ara area:
The Air Force is investigating whether the UAV that triggered alarms in the Nahariya and Acre area at 6:45 PM is the same one that exploded in Wadi Ara about half an hour later, around 7:15 PM. Since contact with the UAV was lost after it crossed over Nahariya and Akko, there’s a possibility it’s the same device. Hezbollah reportedly launched ‘two or three drones simultaneously’ during the incident. One of them was intercepted by the Navy over the sea.
Contrary to earlier reports, the drone was not detected by detection systems, did not trigger any alarms, and no interception attempts were made.”The alarm that sounded at 7:00 PM in Talmei Elazar, near the impact site, was unrelated to the UAV incident and was caused by the interception of a ballistic missile launched from Lebanon at the time.”
MDA reported that four people were critically wounded, five were seriously wounded, and 14 were moderately wounded.
Three of the wounded were evacuated by helicopter to Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, and another two were taken to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.
Four people who were lightly wounded were evacuated to the Emek Medical Center in Afula.
The Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus received three wounded people in moderate condition, who are being treated in the trauma room for further evaluation.
An additional 28 wounded were taken to various hospitals by ambulance.
Following the attack, Israeli television channels will continue to broadcast the news and will not move to broadcast scheduled primetime programming, Ran Boker of Ynet reported.
בשל האירוע הקשה באזור בנימינה – הערב ערוצי הטלוויזיה ימשיכו בשידורי החדשות ולא ישודרו תוכנית הפריים טיים שתוכננו
— Ran Boker רן בוקר (@ranboker) October 13, 2024
The attack came right around when the IDF Home Front Command issued a lifting of some restrictions in a number of areas overlapping with the area which was struck.
Meanwhile, the IDF on Sunday announced that it had carried out 200 air strikes against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon over the last 24 hours while also maintaining four divisions destroying the terror group’s south Lebanon infrastructure, but was still failing to substantially reduce rocket fire on the home front.
This is a developing story.