Two soldiers wounded in drone strike on army base in ‘moderate’ condition

TEL AVIV, BEIRUT: The Rambam (Maimonides) Hospital in Haifa received two patients at its trauma department who were wounded when a UAV/drone struck the IDF’s (Israel Defense Forces) ‘Elyakim’ training base in northern Israel Thursday evening.

The hospital reported that the two were conscious when they arrived and suffered from shrapnel wounds. Their medical conditions are defined as moderate at this stage and they are undergoing a series of medical scans at this time.

Meanwhile, the Hezbollah claimed that it targeted what it identified as the Tel Haim military base in Tel Aviv, located approximately 120 km from the Lebanon border, Al Jazeera reported. The Hezbollah said it used “qualitative missiles” to target the base, which it said belongs to the military intelligence division of the Israeli army. It did not comment on the potential impact, and the Israeli military has not commented.

According to Al Jazeera, in some of the latest of its over 30 attacks today, Hezbollah said it fired rockets toward the Kiryat Shmona settlement and other communities near the border with Lebanon.

Earlier, an Israeli air strike targeted the civil defence centre in the vicinity of the city of Baalbek, in the Baalbek-Hermel governorate, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. It added that the strike hit while 20 members were inside. The Baalbek-Hermel governor posted on X that 12 bodies have been recovered from the site, but the process of removing the rubble is ongoing, as per Al Jazeera.

Israeli airstrikes killed approximately 200 Hezbollah terrorists and destroyed 140 rocket launchers in the past week, the Israel Defense Forces disclosed on Thursday morning. The IDF said the launchers posed “an immediate threat” to the Israeli home front and soldiers operating in southern Lebanon.

Targets included a launcher from which rockets were fired into the Western Galilee and central Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday, the army added. Among the terrorists eliminated in the strikes were the head of battalion operations and the head of battalion anti-tank weapons in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force in the coastal sector.

“These attacks and assassinations constitute another damage to the ability of the terrorist organization Hezbollah to promote and carry out terrorist operations from southern Lebanon against the Israeli rear on the northern border”, the IDF said.

After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began launching rockets and launching drones at northern Israel communities daily. More than 68,000 residents of northern Israel are displaced from their homes. Hezbollah leaders have repeatedly said they would continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes.

At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7.Of the 97 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead. Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014. (ANI/TPS)