Four IDF soldiers were killed, and another seven were seriously wounded in Hezbollah's drone attack targeting a Golani Brigade military base near Binyamina, the IDF reported on Sunday night.
All wounded soldiers were evacuated to hospitals for further medical treatment, and notifications were sent to the families of both dead and wounded.
The IDF noted that the incident is under investigation.
According to Magen David Adom and the IDF, a total of 67 people were wounded in the attack for which Hezbollah later claimed responsibility.
The drone was sent from Lebanon under the cover of a Hezbollah rocket barrage.
Two drones were launched toward Israel, with one shot down over the sea, but one of the drones 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 drone strike in the Wadi Ara area:
The Air Force is investigating whether the drone 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 drone was lost after it crossed over Nahariya and Acre, 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 drone 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 individuals 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.
Ran Boker of Ynet reported that following the attack, Israeli television channels would continue to broadcast the news and would not move to broadcast scheduled primetime programming.
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 the time the IDF Home Front Command lifted some restrictions in a number of areas overlapping with the area that was struck.
Meanwhile, the IDF announced on Sunday that it had carried out 200 air strikes against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon over the last 24 hours.
Concurrently, the military stated that it maintained four divisions destroying the terror group's south Lebanon infrastructure but was still failing to reduce rocket fire on the home front substantially.
This is a developing story.