19 injured, one critically, as Hezbollah drones strike near northern city of Nahariya

IDF says impact along highway caused by failed Iron Dome interceptor; terror group claims assault targeted military base; Hezbollah says reprisal for top commander yet to come

By Emanuel Fabian,
ToI Staff and Agencies 6 August 2024, 3:40 pmUpdated at 7:24 pm Edit
Footage taken by an onlooker in northern Israel appears to show a Hezbollah attack drone that crossed from Lebanon, on August 6, 2024. (Video screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Footage taken by an onlooker in northern Israel appears to show a Hezbollah attack drone that crossed from Lebanon, on August 6, 2024. (Video screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Nineteen people were injured Tuesday, one of them critically, after a Hezbollah drone attack on the Western Galilee. At least one of those injured was wounded as the result of an Iron Dome interceptor missile that malfunctioned, the Israel Defense Forces later said.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it treated victims at three locations in the Nahariya area. One person was critically wounded, another person was listed in light-to-moderate condition, and others were lightly hurt, MDA said.

The critically wounded man, in his 40s, was hit while driving and crashed into the side of the road. Hundreds of meters away, in a parking lot, a woman aged 65 was moderately wounded by shrapnel. Six soldiers were also wounded at an army base in the area.

In all, 19 people were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya for treatment, including the critically wounded man, the woman in moderate condition, and 17 others in good condition.

The hospital said some of the lightly wounded victims were suffering headaches and tinnitus, and others from acute anxiety. On Tuesday evening, all had been released from the medical center.

Among the lightly wounded were six soldiers who were hurt after one of the Hezbollah drones impacted the Shraga Camp near Nahariya, sparking a fire. The troops were taken to a hospital for minor injuries, including ringing in their ears from the blast.

The IDF said several hours later that the man critically wounded along the Route 4 highway near Nahariya was hurt by a malfunctioning Iron Dome interceptor that crashed into the ground.

“According to an initial investigation, it emerged that it was an interceptor that missed the target and impacted the ground,” the IDF said.

Several of the Hezbollah drones did also impact the Nahariya area, including the army base.

Police work at the site of a Hezbollah drone strike near Nahariya, August 6, 2024. (Flash90)

The Hezbollah terror group took responsibility for the assault, saying it had launched a “swarm” of attack drones targeting the Shraga Camp.

The IDF said it identified several drones entering Israeli airspace from Lebanon in the attack, and that one was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system while the others impacted in the Nahariya area, causing casualties.

Footage on social media showed a projectile, apparently the interceptor, impacting on a highway in the town of Mazra’a in the Western Galilee, near Nahariya.

 

A source within the Lebanon-based terror group told Reuters that the attack was not the expected retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut last week. Hezbollah has vowed to avenge him, prompting worries of a major escalation that could tip into a full-blown war.

Police work at the site of a Hezbollah drone strike near Nahariya, August 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

An eyewitness to the drone strike said he “miraculously survived” the explosion because he lay down on the road, saving himself from the flying shrapnel.

The man told Kan news he’d heard sirens and lay on the ground. He said he heard a drone flying overhead, before there was a big blast “and shrapnel flew over me.”

“I only survived because I lay down. It was a miracle. I’ve never seen such a thing,” said the witness, who said he was from Kiryat Ata and did not give his name.

He described the scene as “terrible,” adding that the Iron Dome system had missed the drone and that fragments of interceptors had also landed nearby.

Avi Azran told Channel 12 he was driving his truck along the road when he saw people lying on the ground. Realizing that there must be a siren, he stopped his vehicle.

“I looked up and I saw the drone in front of me at a height of some 10 meters from the ground. It started to shake and all of a sudden, boom!” he said.

Avi Azran speaks to Channel 12 at the scene of a Hezbollah drone impact near Nahariya, August 6, 2024 (Screen grab)

Azran said that while he and his family had always voted for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, that would change unless action was taken about the near-daily Hezbollah fire at northern towns.

“Enough,” he said. “The 12 children [killed] in the Druze village were like our children.”

“We have been abandoned by the failing government,” Azran said, adding that something needed to be done “once and for all” about the situation, which he called “intolerable.”

Tuesday’s attack came shortly after the IDF carried out an airstrike in Maifadoun in southern Lebanon, targeting what it said was a building used by Hezbollah.

At least four Hezbollah members were killed in the strike, the terror group announced. Hezbollah also announced two more members killed in Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday.

According to the IDF, the building was used by members of Hezbollah’s so-called Southern Front unit, the terror group’s regional command in southern Lebanon.

Another building used by Hezbollah was struck in Khiam, the IDF said.

On Monday evening, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit was killed in a drone strike in southern Lebanon.

Ali Jamal al-Din Jawad was struck in the southern Lebanon village of Aabba. According to the IDF, Jawad was a Radwan commander.

Hezbollah announced Jawad’s death following the strike, but did not provide information on his rank. The IDF said his killing was a “significant blow” to Hezbollah’s capabilities to carry out attacks on Israel.

Tensions in the region have escalated since last week when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in the Iranian capital of Tehran, in an attack Iran blamed on Israel, vowing to retaliate. Haniyeh was killed hours after an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah’s military chief, Shukr, in Beirut. Hezbollah has vowed to respond to the killing of its most senior military commander.

Israel took responsibility for Shukr’s killing, but has not commented on Haniyeh’s death, other than to say that the country had not carried out any other airstrikes in the Middle East that night. Some foreign reports have said Mossad killed Haniyeh by planting a bomb in the room he was staying in at a Tehran guesthouse.

The country has been anticipating a coordinated attack by Hezbollah, Iran, as well as other Iran-backed proxies in the region in response to the two assassinations.

A man rides his moped past a billboard bearing portraits of slain terror leaders, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas (left), Iranian Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani (C), and Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr on the main road near the Beirut International Airport on August 3, 2024. (Photo by Ibrahim AMRO / AFP)

Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war against the Hamas terror group there. So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 25 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 399 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 70 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.

Israel has warned it can no longer tolerate Hezbollah’s presence along its border following Hamas’s October 7 atrocities and has warned that should a diplomatic solution not be reached to the ongoing cross-border attacks, it will turn to military action to push Hezbollah northward.

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