The house of Benjamin Netanyahu is targeted by Israel, as well as strikes in Gaza
Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack on the prime minister of Gaza declares it will not lose its footing in the onset of the Palestinian crisis
JERUSALEM — The Israeli government said a drone targeted the prime minister’s house Saturday, though there were no casualties, as Iran’s supreme leader vowed Hamas would continue its fight following the killing of the mastermind of last year’s deadly Oct. 7 attack.
The barrage comes as Israel considers its expected response to an Iranian attack earlier this month and presses its offensives against Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel has been carrying out a large-scale operation in northern Gaza for the last two weeks, saying Hamas has regrouped there. Palestinian officials say hundreds of people have been killed and that the health sector in the north is on the verge of collapse.
When Netanyahu arrived at Ben Gurion Airport, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a missile at the airport. The missile was intercepted.
People in the northern city of Kir Atayat ran for cover when sirens blared. One rocket landed in the area, and Associated Press reporters saw burned cars and a damaged building. Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa area, said nine people were lightly injured.
The Israeli fire service said it was battling blazes caused by missiles in the Shlomi area, which is less than a mile from the Lebanon border.
Iran supports Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where a year of escalating tensions boiled over into all-out war last month. Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon at the start of October.
Israel ordered the entire population of the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, to evacuate to the south in the opening weeks of the war and reiterated those instructions earlier this month. Most of the population fled last year, but around 400,000 people are believed to have remained in the north.
Sinwar’s Demise in the Gaza Conflict: Israel, Lebanon, Israel, and the Hamas/Iran Resurrection
Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said he was in charge of attacks against Israel.
In Lebanon, the health ministry said that an Israeli air strike killed two people. Who was in the car was not known at the time.
Hamas has maintained that the hostages it took from Israel a year ago will not be released unless there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The stance pushed back against the statement by Netanyahu that the military will stay in Gaza until the hostages are released to prevent the resurgence of Hamas.
Iran’s supreme leader said that Sinwar’s death was painful but that Hamas continued despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders.
Sinwar was the chief architect of the 2023 Hamas raid on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. According to local health authorities, more than half the 42,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza are women and children.
Several people were killed when a United Nations school in the west of Gaza City was hit.
The war has destroyed most of the populated part of Gaza, leaving the people there with little or no food, water, medicine or fuel.
The governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza hoped Sinwar’s demise would lead to an end to the fighting.
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It said another 40 people were wounded in the strikes on the town of Beit Lahiya, which was among the first targets of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago.
The documents claim that Israel was moving military equipment in order to conduct a military strike in response to the Iranian missile attack.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, has called civilian casualties in Lebanon “far too high” in the Israel-Hezbollah war and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in and around Beirut.
A man and his son, his wife, her daughter-law and their four children were among the dead from the Beit Lahiya strikes according to a medic. He said the strike flattened a multi-story building and at least four neighboring houses.
Mounir al-Bursh, director general of the Health Ministry, said the flood of wounded from the strikes compounded “an already catastrophic situation for the health care system” in northern Gaza, in a post on X.
Doctors Without Borders, the international charity known by its French acronym MSF, called on Israeli forces “to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in North Gaza” after the Health Ministry said Israeli troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend.
Anna said that the ongoing violence and non-stop Israeli military operations in northern Gaza have consequences.
Internet connectivity went down in northern Gaza late Saturday and had not yet been restored by midday Sunday, making it difficult to gather information about the strikes and complicating rescue efforts.
Israel has been carrying out a major operation in Jabaliya, also in northern Gaza, for the last two weeks. The military says it launched the operation against Hamas militants who had regrouped there.
Over the course of the war, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
The north has already suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, and has been encircled by Israeli forces since late last year, following the deadly Hamas’ attack on Israel.
The militant group killed over 1200 people and kidnapped another 250 after bombing Israel’s security fence. A third of the 100 captives held in Gaza are thought to be dead.
