JERUSALEM: Israel said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Saturday (Oct 19), as Hezbollah launched a barrage of projectiles into Israel from its northern neighbour Lebanon.
On its southern front, Israel hammered Gaza with air strikes, with an overnight raid on Jabalia in the north killing 33 people according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli prime minister and his wife were not in Caesarea during the drone attack and “there were no injuries”. Earlier the military said a drone fired from Lebanon had “hit a structure” in the central Israeli town.
Throughout the morning, sirens blared in Israel as Lebanese militants Hezbollah launched projectiles from various locations.
The Iran-backed group said it fired a large salvo of advanced rockets at a military base in the Haifa region of northern Israel.
Late last month Israel dramatically stepped up its air strikes on Lebanon and sent in ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges.
In Gaza, the fighting came after the killing on Wednesday of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, accused of masterminding the Oct 7 attack on Israel, which had raised hopes of an end to the war and the release of Israeli hostages.
On Friday, Qatar-based Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya reiterated the Palestinian group’s position that no hostages would be freed “unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops”.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose country is also a key backer of Hamas, said the group “will not end at all with the martyrdom of Sinwar”.
With fighting raging in Gaza, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal announced “33 deaths and dozens of wounded” in an Israeli strike Jabalia overnight.
The Israeli military said it was “looking into it”.
Early on Saturday, three houses in the Jabalia refugee camp were targeted, the agency said, while witnesses told AFP there was heavy gunfire and artillery shelling in the direction of the camp.
Israeli forces have been concentrating their efforts on northern Gaza in recent days, saying Hamas was regrouping there.
Witnesses also reported Israeli shelling in central Gaza’s Al-Bureij camp.
“We always thought that when this moment arrived, the war would end and our lives would return to normal,” 21-year-old Gazan Jemaa Abu Mendi said, referring to Sinwar’s death in the territory’s far south.
“But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is quite the opposite. The war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated.”
