Israeli security forces secured a road near what the Israeli government said was a drone attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea, Israel, on Saturday.
Ariel Schalit/AP
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Ariel Schalit/AP
JERUSALEM – Israel’s government said a drone struck the prime minister’s home Saturday, although there were no casualties, as Iran’s supreme leader vowed Hamas would resume fighting after killing the mastermind of last year’s deadly Oct. 7 attack.
Sirens wailed in Israel warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. The military said dozens of projectiles were fired. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his home in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea, even though he and his wife were not home.
The barrage comes as Israel considers an expected response to Iran’s attack earlier this month and forced strikes against Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at a hospital in the battered north of the Palestinian enclave, and an attack on the Strip killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.
In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile at Ben Gurion Airport as Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.
Barrages from Lebanon target northern Israel
In addition to the drone launched at Netanyahu’s private home, the Israeli military said 180 projectiles were fired throughout the day from Lebanon on Saturday morning. A 50-year-old man was killed after being hit by shrapnel while sitting in a car in northern Israel, and four others were wounded, Israel’s medical service said.
In the northern town of Kiryat Ata, sirens blared as people ran for cover and intercepted missiles exploded in the sky. One rocket landed in the area, and an Associated Press reporter saw burned cars and damaged buildings. Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa region, said nine people were lightly wounded.
Israel’s fire service also said it was battling several fires caused by missiles in the Shlomi area, less than a mile (1 kilometer) from the Lebanese border.
Israel’s war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah – an Iranian-backed ally of Hamas – has escalated in recent weeks. Hezbollah said on Friday that it planned to start a new phase of fighting by sending guided missiles and detonating drones into Israel. The militant group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon in early October.
On Saturday, the Israeli military issued a new evacuation warning for two buildings in the southern suburb of Beirut in Haret Hriek. Israel has issued almost daily warnings to people to leave buildings and villages in Lebanese territory. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, including some 400,000 children.
Israel also said that it killed the Deputy Commander of Hezbollah in the southern city of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid oversaw the attack on Israel.
In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli airstrike on Saturday hit a vehicle on a highway north of Beirut, killing two people. It is unclear who was in the car when it was hit.
Israel attacked Gaza because Hamas refused to release hostages
A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which is fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to end 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 had continued to advance despite previous assassinations of other Palestinian militant leaders.
“Hamas is alive and will remain alive,” Khamenei said in his first comments on the assassination.
Since Israel claimed the death of Sinwar, which was confirmed by a senior Hamas official, Hamas has reiterated its position that the hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and the total withdrawal of Israeli forces. The staunch position is pushed back against the statement by Netanyahu that the country’s military will continue to fight until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent the greatly weakened Hamas from rearming.
Sinwar was the main architect of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. but said that more than half of the dead were women and children.
Another attack hit Gaza on Saturday. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement that the Israeli attack hit the top floor of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and that the forces opened fire on the hospital building and its courtyard, causing panic among patients and medical staff.
At Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, an attack hit the top floor of the building, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement. Three houses in Jabaliya were attacked on Friday, 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 services. At least 80 people were injured.
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house in the town of Zawayda, according to al-Aqsa Martyr Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where the victims were taken. Another attack killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the Maghazi refugee camp, the same hospital. Associated Press reporters counted the bodies of two of the attacks on the hospital.
A United Nations school sheltering displaced people in the west of Gaza City, was also hit, killing several people, according to Hamas-run civil defense first responders.
The attack knocked out internet networks in northern Gaza, Paltel, a Palestinian communications company, said on Facebook Saturday.
The war has devastated much of Gaza, displacing around 90% of its population of 2.3 million, and leaving them scrambling for food, water, medicine and fuel.
Opportunity in Sinwar’s death
Sinwar’s killing is seen as a possible clash with Israeli forces on Wednesday, and could change the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel steps up its offensive against Hezbollah with ground forces in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other parts of the country. .
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar is a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a speech Thursday announcing the killing that “our war is not over.”
However, Israel’s allied government and exhausted Gazans expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the fighting.
In Israel, the families of hostages still being held in Gaza are demanding that the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring their loved ones home. There are about 100 hostages still in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
