Israel’s military said Sunday that a Hezbollah drone killed four soldiers at one of its northern bases, as it increased its bombardment of Lebanon and troops fought militants across the border.
The attack on a military training camp in Binyamina, near Haifa, is the deadliest attack on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to emergency services, more than 60 people were injured.
Meanwhile, Gaza authorities reported that the death toll from an Israeli strike on a school used as a shelter for displaced people on Sunday had risen to 15, including families.
And, as fighting raged between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon’s south, United Nations peacekeepers said they were once again in the crossfire.
They claimed Israeli troops “forcibly” entered a UN position with two tanks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that the force withdraw from the area.
Israel’s military said a tank backed into the UN post while under fire.
Iran-backed Hezbollah announced late Sunday that it had launched “a squadron of attack drones” at the Binyamina camp, approximately 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Haifa.
The strike was in response to Israeli attacks, including air strikes on Thursday, which killed at least 22 people in central Beirut, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
In a later statement, Hezbollah warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people”.
An Israeli volunteer rescue service, United Hatzalah, said its teams in Binyamina assisted “over 60 wounded people” with injuries ranging from minor to critical.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones at Israel for over a year in support of Hamas militants in Gaza.
Since late September, however, its strikes have expanded throughout the country.
Israel’s sophisticated air defences intercepted the majority of the projectiles, resulting in few casualties from strikes or falling debris.
Protect this ‘blessed land’.
Israel’s recent strikes have increasingly targeted areas outside of Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in southern Beirut, as well as Lebanon’s south and east.
Israel said its air force hit “Hezbollah launchers, anti-tank missile posts, weapons storage facilities” and other targets, while its soldiers “eliminated dozens” of fighters on the ground.
According to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA), Israeli forces have “escalated their attacks” in southern Lebanon with “successive air strikes” on several border villages.
It was later reported that an Israeli strike on Mayfadoun, near Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon, killed five people and injured one more.
Hezbollah claimed its forces clashed several times with Israeli troops attempting to “infiltrate” villages along the border.
Prior to the drone strike, it claimed to have launched a rocket barrage at a “base in southern Haifa”.
The group later aired an audio recording of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, who urged fighters to “defend this holy and blessed land and this honorable people.”
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike in south Beirut on September 27, as were several other senior commanders of the movement.
According to Israel’s military, approximately 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had crossed into Israeli territory by Sunday afternoon.
On Sunday, Israel’s military said it captured a Hezbollah fighter emerging from a tunnel in south Lebanon, the first such announcement since the ground offensive began.
‘Shocking violations’
UN peacekeepers accused Israeli troops of breaking through a gate and entering one of their positions in south Lebanon before dawn Sunday, in the latest of several incidents reported by the UNIFIL mission since Thursday.
Five Blue Helmets have so far been injured, prompting international condemnation.
“Two IDF (Israeli military) Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position” in Ramia, before leaving 45 minutes later, UNIFIL reported.
The Israeli military later stated that a tank “backed several meters into a UNIFIL post” while “under fire” and attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers.
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu urged the UN to relocate peacekeepers in southern Lebanon after the mission refused to abandon their positions.
According to Netanyahu, the presence of the peacekeepers had “the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields”.
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that “attacks” against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime”.
UNIFIL, which has approximately 9,500 troops, is in southern Lebanon under long-standing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which states that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed there.
Three Lebanese soldiers were wounded on Sunday, according to the army, when Israeli forces opened fire on military vehicles in the Marjayoun area.
French President Emmanuel Macron called Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and urged Iran to support “a general de-escalation” in Lebanon and Gaza, according to his office.
US sends more air defenses.
According to Gaza’s civil defence agency, Israeli shelling killed at least 15 people and injured dozens more on Sunday at a school converted into a shelter for displaced Palestinians in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.
“The school was bombarded with a large volley of Israeli artillery, resulting in an initial death toll of 15 martyrs, including children, women, and entire families, as well as 50 wounded,” said Mahmud Bassal, an agency spokesman.
Israel’s military stated that it was “looking into the reports”.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, announced late Sunday that a WHO-Red Cross operation had successfully resupplied two hospitals in northern Gaza.
“WHO and partners finally managed to reach Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba hospitals yesterday after 9 attempts this past week,” he shared with X.
Hamas sparked the Gaza war with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,206 people, the majority of whom were civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The figure includes hostages killed in captivity.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reports that more than 42,000 people, the majority of whom are civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed over 1,300 people since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures, including those for Saturday.
That figure exceeds the total Lebanese toll of 1,200 — mostly civilians — in the previous Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, when 160 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in Israel.
The Pentagon said it would send a high-altitude anti-missile system and a US military crew to Israel to help the ally defend itself against a potential Iranian attack.
