West Asia crisis | It's painful: Israeli army chief reacts to Hezbollah strike on military base

Israeli Army chiefLieutenant General Herzi Halevi said on Monday (Oct 14) that aHezbollah drone strike on a military training base that killed at least four soldiers at the weekend was "difficult and painful."

"We are at war, and an attack on a training base on the home front is difficult and the results are painful," Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi told soldiers during a visit to the Golani Brigade training base that was hit Sunday night in the area of Binyamina, south of the city of Haifa, the news agency AFP reported.

What happened during the weekend?

The Israeli military said thata drone attack carried out byHezbollahon an army base adjacent to Binyamina in northern Israel killed four soldiers and seven others were severely injured.

The Iran-backed Lebanese militant groupsaid it attacked a camp of the Israeli military's Golani Brigade camp in Binyamina in northern Israel with a "swarm of drones."

The drone attack on Sunday wounded at least 60 people in Binyamina, according to the Israeli emergency services.

The four soldiers who were killed were identified asSgt. Omri Tamari, 19, from Mazkeret Batya;Sgt. Yosef Hieb, 19, from Tuba Zangariya;Sgt. Yoav Agmon, 19, from Binyamina-Giv’at Ada; andSgt. Alon Amitay, 19, from Ramot Naftali.

Attack under investigation

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Monday that the attack at the military base was being investigated.

"...at this point, there is complete operational control on the incident, all the casualties were evacuated to hospitals, we are now busy with notifying their families, all the troops in the base were asked to call home and inform their families that they are fine," Rear Admiral Hagari said.

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"We are managing the incident, we will study and investigate the incident and how a drone infiltrates without alerts and strikes the base. The threat of drones is a threat we have been dealing with since the beginning of the war, we are required to bring about better protection, we will investigate this incident, learn and improve, our mission is to better protect our soldiers and citizens of Israel," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)