A drone targets Netanyahu’s house and attacks in Gaza leave more than 50 dead

Jerusalem –

The Israeli government said on Saturday that a drone was launched at the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but caused no casualties, while fighting with the Lebanese political-paramilitary group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas did not stop after the killing of the architect of the deadly . Attack in southern Israel on October 7 last year.

The Israeli military said dozens of projectiles were launched from Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase in the fighting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office indicated that a drone targeted his residence in the coastal city of Caesarea, although neither the president nor his wife were at the property. It is not known whether the house was attacked or not.

“The Iranian representatives who tried to assassinate me and my wife today made a grave mistake,” Netanyahu said.

Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for the attack, but said it fired several rocket attacks into northern and central Israel. The attack comes as Israel prepares to respond to an attack earlier this month by Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas.

Lebanese officials said that for its part, Israel carried out at least 10 airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Daniyeh, a densely populated area where Hezbollah has offices. The Israeli military said it had attacked Hezbollah positions.

In Gaza, Israeli forces fired on hospitals in the devastated north and more than 50 people, including children, were killed in attacks across the strip in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

“The possibility of war in the region remains a serious concern,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said during a visit to Turkiye. G-7 defense ministers warned against escalating tensions and “total war”.

Attacks from Lebanon target northern Israel

Israel’s war against Hezbollah has intensified in recent weeks. The militia said on Friday it planned to launch more guided missiles and explosive drones into Israeli territory. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli strike in late September and Israeli forces launched a ground attack in the south of the neighboring country in early October.

The Israeli military said about 180 projectiles had been fired from Lebanon by Saturday morning. A 50-year-old man died and four people were injured by shrapnel in northern Israel, according to Israeli medical services.

A rocket fell in the city of Kiryat Ata in northern Israel. Haifa area commander Itzik Billet said nine people were slightly injured.

Five people, including the mayor of the nearby town of Sohmor, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in the eastern Lebanese city of Baloul, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported. An Israeli military official confirmed that the country’s defense forces attacked targets in the Bekaa Valley.

Two people were killed when Israel struck the car they were traveling in on a highway north of Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Saturday.

Israel has issued almost daily warnings to people to leave buildings and towns in various parts of Lebanon. The war has displaced more than one million people, including approximately 400,000 minors.

Israel also announced the death on Saturday of the group’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. According to the military, Nasser Rashid oversaw attacks against Israel.

Israel drops leaflets depicting Sinwar’s body

Israel and Hamas have been reluctant to end the war in the Gaza Strip after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the chief architect of the attack on Israel more than a year ago, which killed 1,200 people, most of them 250 civilians. Was kidnapped. According to Israel, about 100 hostages are being held in Gaza, at least 30 of whom have died.

On Saturday, Israeli forces dropped leaflets in southern Gaza showing Sinwar’s body covered in blood. “Sinwar has ruined our lives,” the leaflets read. “Whoever lays down his arms and returns the kidnapped people to us, we will let him go and live in peace.”

Hamas has reiterated its stance that it will not release the hostages until a ceasefire is reached and Israeli forces withdraw. Netanyahu says Israeli forces will continue fighting until the hostages are freed and will remain in Gaza to prevent the severely weakened Hamas from re-arming.

Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but confirm that more than half of the dead are women and children. .

On Saturday, Gaza was rocked by fresh attacks, with Palestinian communications company Paltel saying internet networks in the north of the enclave were out of service.

Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli strikes reached the upper floors of the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya and soldiers opened fire on the building, causing panic.

The Israeli military indicated that it was operating near the said hospital and “was not intentionally fired upon.”

The army said it was already studying the case as al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, said the attacks reached upper floors, injuring several staff. Later, he said the army attacked an ambulance, injuring four people, including a doctor.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service, said three houses in Jabaliya were attacked overnight and at least 30 people were killed, more than half of them women and children. At least more than 80 people were injured.

Palestinian residents said Israeli forces were forcing hundreds of displaced people to leave Jabaliya and move to Gaza City.

“The occupation forces evicted us at gunpoint,” said Umm Saeed, a mother of three. “Many tanks and heavily armed soldiers surrounded us.” He claimed that several youths were taken for questioning, although most of them were later released.

The Israeli military described the operation as a clearance and said it had detained several militants for questioning.

A UN school housing displaced people in western Gaza City was attacked and several people were killed, according to rescuers from the Hamas-run Civil Defense Service.

“What is this? There is a clinic there with many children,” said Bashir Haddad, a displaced man at the site. One child was collecting body parts on a piece of cardboard.

At least 10 people, including two children, lost their lives when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, in the center of the strip, according to martyrs at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where the victims were transferred. In another operation, 11 people of the same family were killed in Maghaji refugee camp, the center said.

The war has devastated large areas of Gaza, displacing about 90% of its 2.3 million people and causing severe shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel.