Strikes in Gaza kill more than 50; Israel says drone targets Netanyahu’s house
JERUSALEM — 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 leader believed to be the 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 coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife were there. It wasn’t clear whether the house was hit.
Hezbollah didn’t claim responsibility for the drone attack, but said it carried out rocket attacks on northern and central Israel. The barrage came as Israel is expected to respond to an attack this month by Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas.
Israel carried out at least 10 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area that is home to Hezbollah’s offices, Lebanese authorities said. Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli strikes killed more than 50 people in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.
Israel’s killing of Hamas’ leader is a harsh blow, analysts say, but hardly a fatal one.
“The possibility of war in the region remains a serious concern,†Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said while visiting Turkey. Group of 7 defense ministers warned against escalation and “all-out war.â€
Israeli strikes pound Gaza as Hamas rejects hostage release
Israel and Hamas are both signaling resistance to ending the war in Gaza after Israeli forces killed Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, alleged to be the chief architect of the raid on Israel last October that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 250 others. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
Israel’s military on Saturday dropped leaflets in southern Gaza showing Sinwar dead, blood running down his forehead. “Sinwar destroyed your lives,†it said. “Whoever lays down his weapons and returns the kidnapped people to us, we will allow him to leave and live in peace.â€
Many Iranians, especially educated ones, were reconciled to constraints on nuclear weapons development. Now, fear of an Israeli strike may be changing that.
Hamas has said the hostages will not be released until there is a cease-fire and Israeli troops withdraw. Netanyahu says Israel’s military will fight until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent Hamas from rearming.
Israel’s retaliatory attacks in Gaza have killed more than 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.
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More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that Israeli strikes hit the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and that forces fired at it, causing panic. Israel’s military said it was operating near the hospital and “there was no intentional fire directed at it.â€
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 an ambulance, wounding four people.
Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight Friday, killing at least 30, more than half of them women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least 80 people were injured.
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, where the injured were taken. It also said another strike killed 11 people in one family in the Maghazi refugee camp. AP journalists counted the bodies from both strikes at the hospital.
A United Nations school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City was also hit, killing several people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense first responders.
As Israel expands its strikes far from Hezbollah’s bastions into areas where displaced Shiites have fled, fears rise about worsening sectarian tensions.
Barrages from Lebanon target northern Israel
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 early this month.
Israel’s military said some 180 projectiles were fired from Lebanon. A 50-year-old man was killed after being hit by shrapnel while sitting in his car, Israel’s medical services said.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in the eastern village of Baaloul killed five people. An Israeli military official confirmed that the Israel Defense Forces struck targets in the Bekaa Valley.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle on a highway north of Beirut, killing two people.
Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah set off furious grief or grim satisfaction, redoubling fears of a widening regional war.
Israel has issued near-daily warnings for people to leave buildings and villages in parts of Lebanon. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, including about 400,000 children.
Israel also said it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel.
Schreck and Magdy write for the Associated Press. AP writers Jack Jeffery from Ramallah, West Bank, and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
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