Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday (19 October 2024) accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of trying to kill himwith the Middle East already on edge after Israel vowed to retaliate for Iranian missile fire.
Mr Netanyahu’s office said a drone was launched at his residence in the central city of Caesarea, but he and his wife were not home at the time and no one was injured.
“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to kill me and my wife today was a serious mistake,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Anyone who tries to harm the citizens of Israel will pay a heavy price,” he said in comments aimed at Tehran and “its proxies,” which include Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a group Israel has been at war with since late September.
The Lebanese group, armed and financed by Iran, did not acknowledge the attack, but late Saturday Iran’s UN mission said “this action was taken” by Hezbollah.
Israeli emergency workers attend the scene after a drone reportedly fired from Lebanon struck a structure on October 19, 2024 in Caesarea, Israel. | Photo: Getty Images
Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said a drone “struck a building in Caesarea while trying to hit the prime minister”.
Caesarea is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Haifa city area that Hezbollah regularly attacks.
While waging war on two fronts, in Lebanon and in Gaza, Israel has also vowed to respond to Missile attack on Iran since October 1 with a “deadly, precise and surprise” attack, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant.
Hamas is a reality
Iran said it fired 200 missiles at its archenemy in response to the killing of an Iranian general and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency said on Saturday that a large-scale Israeli military operation had killed more than 400 people in two weeks in the northern part of the territory.
Hamas’s ally, Hezbollah, has vowed to step up attacks on Israel and on Saturday fired rockets into northern Israel, where rescuers said one person was killed by shrapnel.
Hamas, Hezbollah and allied Iran-backed groups in the region vowed to keep fighting after Israeli troops on Wednesday killed Palestinian movement leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, more than a year after the start of the war sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023
“Hamas is a reality in Palestine that no one can ignore, no one can destroy,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state television on Saturday after a meeting with a Hamas representative in Istanbul.
“Unspeakable horrors”
Israel, vowing to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping in northern Gaza, launched a major air and ground offensive on October 6, tightening its siege of the war-torn zone and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing.
Civil Defense Agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal said “we have found more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip,” including Jabalia and its refugee camp, since the start of the Israeli operation.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was looking into reports from Gaza’s civil defense agency, including that an overnight airstrike on Jabalia had killed 33 people.
“It’s been more than a year and every day our blood is being shed,” displaced Gaza resident Nasser Shakura said outside a hospital in Deir el-Balah where victims of an Israeli airstrike were taken.
“Every day, every hour there is a massacre,” he said. “This is what our lives have become.”
Palestinians are experiencing “unspeakable horrors” in the northern Gaza Strip, acting UN humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya told X.
“Unspeakable horrors”
The violence has fueled hopes that Sinwar’s death could end the war or lead to the swift release of 97 hostages still held by militants in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
At the latest rally in Tel Aviv demanding a prisoner release deal, Iris Shahar-Lavi, the aunt of captured Israeli soldier Naama Levy, said Sinuar’s death “makes us both very worried about her fate, but also very we’re hoping that maybe this is an opportunity to make a deal.”
The war was sparked by an unprecedented attack by Hamas last year that left 1,206 people dead, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures from AFP.
Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas and return the hostages has killed 42,519 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry, figures the UN considers reliable.
The director of an Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza said Israeli forces were shelling the facility, and Gaza’s health ministry said two patients had died. He blamed the Israeli siege and lack of medical supplies.
The military said troops were operating near the facility, but said no “intentional fire” had been directed at it.
The Israeli army said two soldiers “fell in combat in northern Gaza” on Saturday, bringing the death toll among troops in Gaza to 357 since the ground offensive began in late October 2023.
Hit Lebanon
Defense ministers from the wealthy G7 countries – Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Japan, Canada and the United States – called on Iran to stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
In a statement after a meeting in Italy, they also expressed concern about the “risk of further escalation” in the Middle East, as well as “threats” to the security of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
In Lebanon, where Israel last month escalated airstrikes and deployed ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah, state media and the health ministry reported more deadly strikes on Saturday.
Israel said its air force struck “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities” and an intelligence center in the group’s southern Beirut stronghold. Ground forces continued “targeted” raids in southern Lebanon.
Since the end of September, the war has killed at least 1,454 people in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health AFP.
Published – October 20, 2024, 02:47 AM IST
