Last night at approximately 7:00pm Israel time, Hezbollah launched three drones, one of which fell in an area, one was intercepted and one scored a direct hit, falling on many IDF soldiers in a crowded dining room in their base in central northern Israel.
Four soldiers were killed in the drone attack and seven were seriously injured. Some 33 soldiers were also lightly injured and are currently hospitalized.
One of the fallen soldiers was Hiev (19) from Tuba-Zangaria. Hiev's grandfather Nayef Hiev served in the IDF as a tracker for 17 years, most of which he spent in Lebanon. He was killed on October 20, 1991 when the patrol vehicle he was traveling in in eastern Lebanon was hit by a bomb.
"In 1948, the members of the Hiev tribe tied their fate to the fate of the country," said Hussein Al Hiev, head of the Tuba-Zangaria local council. "On the initiative of Yigal Alon and Sheikh Abu Yusuf, the Pahlavi unit was established in the War of Independence and since then an unbreakable alliance has been forged." Yosef Hiev will be buried today at noon in the military section of the cemetery in Tuba Zangaria.
Amitai Alon, 19, from Moshav Ramot Naftali, was another soldier who was murdered in the drone strike. His mother is a lieutenant colonel in the military and during the war she served as commander in the Northern Command.
Amitai's uncle wrote: "The heart refuses to believe our Amitai. In what changed world do I accompany my sister to her son's grave? The path to the fields of the moshav ends here. Maybe we will pick pears and apples up there, our beautiful angel. Nothing will not heal the pain. Only eight months ago I took you to training."
Shuki Ohion, father of a soldier who was slightly injured last night, was interviewed this morning (Monday) on the "Kalman-Lieberman" program on Kan Reshet B, and explained what happened: "It was not an easy scene, they sat in the dining room and suddenly, six or seven meters away from them, it [the drone] exploded."
Shuki's son is the commander of a rookie class at the base. He was slightly injured by shrapnel to his face and his hearing was also mildly damaged. "My son has mental strength, he is a strong guy. He understood very quickly what was happening and came to his senses. They managed to evacuate those who were wounded."
The father said that one of the dead was under his son's direct command. "He was very close to this soldier. Already yesterday, when he was evacuating the wounded, he realized that the soldier was most likely dead. He also received calls from parents of other soldiers - and didn't know what to answer. Even when he was in Gaza, the company commander and the platoon commander who served with him were killed, it's scary. It's always with us."
When the alerts were received in the Binyamina area, Shuki immediately realized that the incident might be in the area where his son was, but then he got a message from his son, "A drone fell in the dining room, I'm perfectly fine, there are casualties." Shuki said, "I asked him to take a picture of himself and then I realized that he is okay."
Finally, he emphasized that his wounded son just wants to return to the base: "What is important to him now is to go back to strengthen his soldiers. He complained that he was not in Lebanon, but I told him that he was doing an equally important job, training the future generation."
Kann News contributed to this article.