By Zein Khalil
JERUSALEM (AA) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening was taken to a safe, fortified area in a hospital in northern Israel as air raids sirens were sounded over a possible rocket attack from Lebanon.
When the sirens went off, Netanyahu was in Hillel Yaffe Hospital in the city of Hadera visiting Israeli soldiers treated who were injured on Sunday in a Hezbollah drone attack that killed four soldiers and left dozens of others injured, according to Israeli public broadcaster KAN.
After the sirens sounded, his security took him to a fortified area of the hospital, KAN added.
KAN noted that 41 soldiers injured by the Hezbollah drone attacks are being treated in hospitals in northern Israel, including six in serious condition,
Following the attack, Israel, including Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, vowed to retaliate against Hezbollah and Lebanon.
Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,542 people, injuring over 4,555 others, and displacing more than 1.34 million people.
The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed nearly 42,300 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.
Despite international warnings that the Mideast was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, it expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.
*Writing by Ahmed Asmar