JERUSALEM – The Israeli government said on Saturday that a drone struck Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as fighting between Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Gaza-based Hamas continues unabated after the killing of Hamas, the leader of the attack on October 7 last year. It was announced that no one was killed or injured.
The Israeli military said dozens of projectiles had been fired from Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase of fighting. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his home in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife were there. It is unclear whether the house was directly hit.
“The Iranian agents who tried to assassinate me and my wife today made a terrible mistake,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said.
Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for the drone attack, but said it had carried out several rocket attacks against northern and central Israel. The barrage comes as Israel appears to be responding to attacks earlier this month by Iran, which supports both Hezbollah and Hamas.
Lebanese officials said Israel in turn carried out at least 10 airstrikes on the southern outskirts of Beirut, known as Dahieh, a heavily populated area where Hezbollah offices are located. The Israeli military said it had attacked Hezbollah targets.
In Gaza, Israeli forces opened fire on a hospital in the devastated north of the Palestinian enclave, killing more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.
“The possibility of war in the region remains a serious concern,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said during a visit to Turkey. Group 7 defense ministers warned against escalation and “all-out war.”
The war between Israel and Hezbollah intensified. Hezbollah on Friday announced plans to send more guided missiles and exploding drones to Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September, and Israel sent ground troops to Lebanon earlier this month.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that about 180 projectiles were fired from Lebanon. A 50-year-old man was killed by shrapnel in northern Israel and four others were injured, Israeli medical authorities said.
A rocket landed in the northern city of Kiryat Ata. Haifa region commander Itzik Bilet said nine people suffered minor injuries.
Lebanese state news agency reported that an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in the eastern village of Baal-Uul killed five people, including the head of the nearby village of Somor. Israeli military officials confirmed that the IDF attacked targets in the Bekaa Valley.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli airstrike has killed two people in a vehicle collision on a highway north of Beirut.
Israel issues almost daily warnings to people in some parts of Lebanon to leave their buildings and villages. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, including about 400,000 children.
Israel also announced it had killed a Hezbollah deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jubeir. The military said Nasser Rashid was overseeing attacks against Israel.
Israel and Hamas are fighting in Gaza following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who killed about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and kidnapped another 250 in an attack on Israel more than a year ago. has shown opposition to the end of the war. There are still hostages in Gaza, and Israel says at least 30 of them have died.
Israeli forces distributed leaflets in southern Gaza on Saturday stating that Sinwar had died with blood flowing from his forehead. “Sinwar destroyed your lives. Whoever lays down his arms and returns the kidnapped people to us, we will allow him to go away and live in peace.”
Hamas reiterated its position that the hostages will not be released until a ceasefire is reached and Israeli forces withdraw. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces would remain in Gaza to fight until the hostages are freed and to prevent the severely weakened Hamas from rearming.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliatory attacks in Gaza, according to local health officials. Officials do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but say more than half of the dead are women and children.
Further strikes hit Gaza on Saturday, with Palestinian telecommunications company Partel announcing it had cut off its internet network in the north.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes hit the upper floors of an Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya, causing panic as troops opened fire.
The Israeli military said it was conducting an operation near the Indonesian hospital and that there was “no intentional firing.”
The military said it was investigating the matter after an attack on the top floor of al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, north Gaza, left several staff injured. Later, the military announced that an ambulance had collided with the vehicle, injuring four people, including a medic.
Three homes were attacked overnight in Jabaliya, killing at least 30 people, including more than half women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency services. At least 80 people were injured.
Palestinian residents said Israeli forces were forcing hundreds of displaced people to leave Jabaliya and head to Gaza City.
“The occupation forces forced us to leave at gunpoint,” said Umm Saeed, a mother of three. “Tanks and heavily armed troops surrounded us,” she said, adding that many young people were apparently taken for questioning, and most were later released.
The Israeli military described it as an evacuation and said it had detained the militants for questioning.
Several people were killed in an attack on a United Nations school sheltering displaced people west of Gaza City, according to the Hamas-run civil defense first response force.
“What is this? There is a clinic and there are children,” said displaced person Bashir Haddad. The boy collected the body parts on a piece of cardboard.
In central Gaza, at least 10 people, including two children, were killed in an attack on a house in the town of Zawaida, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. A separate attack killed 11 members of the same family in Magaji refugee camp, the hospital said.
The war has destroyed vast swathes of Gaza, with about 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people displaced and struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.
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Associated Press reporters Jack Jeffrey in Ramallah, West Bank, and Bassem Mourou in Beirut contributed to this report.
