Drone strike launched toward Benjamin Netanyahu’s home, Israel says; no injuries reported
Israel’s government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house Saturday, with no casualties, as fighting with Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Gaza-based Hamas showed no pause after the killing of the Hamas mastermind of last year’s Oct. 7 attack.
Israel’s military said dozens of projectiles were launched from Lebanon a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase in fighting. Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife was there. It wasn’t clear if the house was hit.
There was no information given about where the drone was launched from or who might be responsible for the attempted attack. Israel did not say if the drone was intercepted or landed elsewhere.
It’s the second strike aimed at Netanyahu in recent months. In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.
Hezbollah didn’t claim responsibility but said it carried out several rocket attacks on Israel. The barrage came as Israel is expected to respond to an attack earlier this month by Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas.
Israel in turn carried out at least 10 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area home to Hezbollah’s offices, Lebanese authorities said. Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had a call with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Saturday, the Pentagon said in a statement, during which they discussed “regional security developments” including the recent deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system. During the call, Austin told Gallant that he was “relieved” Netanyahu was safe after the drone attack.
In Gaza, meanwhile, the Hamas-run Gaza media office early Sunday said that at least 73 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a multi-story residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Saturday, Reuters reported.
The Israeli military said it was investigating, but alleged the numbers issued by the Hamas media office were exaggerated, Reuters said.
Earlier, Israeli forces allegedly fired at hospitals in northern Gaza. Those strikes killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.
Hezbollah says it plans to escalate its attacks
Saturday’s strikes into Israel come as its war in Lebanon with Hezbollah has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October.
Israel’s military said about 200 projectiles were fired Saturday from Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah said it planned to send more guided missiles and exploding drones.
A 50-year-old man was hit by shrapnel and killed in northern Israel, and four other people were wounded, Israel’s medical services said.
Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel
In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli airstrike Saturday hit a vehicle on a main highway north of Beirut, killing two people. It was unclear who was in the car when it was struck.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in eastern Baaloul village killed five people, including the mayor of nearby Sohmor village. An Israeli military official confirmed that the IDF struck targets in the Bekaa Valley.
A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar this week. On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him.
“Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” Khamenei said.
Since Israel announced Sinwar’s death Thursday and a top Hamas political official confirmed the death Friday, Hamas has reiterated its stance that the hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The staunch position pushed back against a statement by Netanyahu that his country’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.
Israel says Sinwar was the chief architect of the 2023 Hamas raid on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has caused the deaths of over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children.
Dozens killed in fresh round of Israeli strikes on Gaza
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and forces opened fire at it, causing panic. The U.N. said two patients died due to a power outage and lack of supplies in recent days.
Israel’s military said it was operating near the hospital and “there was no intentional fire directed at it.”
The military also said it was looking into the matter after Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, said strikes hit the top floors, wounding several staff members. It later said the military hit its ambulances and courtyard, wounding four people, including a medic.
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where the casualties were taken. An AP reporter counted the bodies at the hospital. Another strike killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the Maghazi refugee camp, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where they were taken. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital.
Overnight Friday, at least three houses were struck in northern Gaza killing at least 30 people, more than half of them women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. The homes were hit in Jabaliya and at least 80 people were injured.
The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.
Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and it could shift the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country.
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a Thursday night speech announcing the killing that “our war is not yet ended.”
Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war.
In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
