Israel says it is targeting Benjamin Netanyahu’s house
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Haifa area: a Syrian attack on an Israeli military target in Beirut after a rocket attack
On Saturday, a drone targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house, causing no casualties, as part of a barrage of incoming projectiles across the country’s northern border. It wasn’t clear if the house was hit.
BEIRUT — Israel’s military announced Sunday it is now taking aim at the Lebanon-based Hezbollah’s financial arm and will attack a “large number of targets” in Beirut and elsewhere. Explosions began in Beirut’s southern suburbs about an hour later.
Hospitals in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza were attacked by the Israeli army and at least 50 people were killed in less than 24 hours.
In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.
People in the northern city of Kir Atayat ran for cover as missiles exploded in the sky. The area was hit by one rocket, 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 fire service said it was fighting several fires in the Shlomi area because of missiles that were fired from the Lebanon border.
U.S. Observations of Iran’s October 1 Ballistic Missile Attack and Implications for the Dynamics of the Interaction with Hezbollah
Iran supports the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and the United States is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents indicating that Israel was moving military assets into place for a military strike in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1, according to three U.S. officials. They speak on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Parts of southern Lebanon and eastern Bekaa valley were affected by warnings to evacuate. AP video showed strikes near Lebanon’s only airport but it continued to operate.
Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said that he was responsible for attacks against Israel.
In southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said three soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicle. The Israeli military did not give a response when it said it hit more than 100 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
The US urged Israel to press for a cease-fire in Gaza after the killing of a Hamas leader. But neither Israel nor Hamas has shown interest in such a deal after negotiations sputtered to a halt in August.
On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him.
Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and it could shift the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country.
The Fate of Gaza: Israel’s War in the First Two-Year War, and the Impact on Hamas’ Health Care System
Several people died when a UN school in the west of Gaza City was hit.
The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.
Israel’s allies and residents of the Gaza Strip expressed hope that the death of Sinwar would lead to an end to the fighting.
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 have been attributed to the U.S. intelligence agency and marked top secret, which suggests that Israel was planning a military strike in response to Iran’s missile attack.
Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, called for Israel to scale back strikes in Lebanon, saying that civilian deaths there were too high during the war.
Among the dead from the strikes in Beit Lahiya were two parents and their four children, and a woman, her son and her daughter-law and their four children, according to Raheem Kheder, a medic. He said the strike flattened a multi-story building and at least four neighboring houses.
The Health Ministry’s director general said the strikes had compounded an already catastrophic situation for the health care system in northern Gaza.
Doctors Without Borders, the international charity known by its French acronym MSF, called on Israeli forces to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza after the Health Ministry said Israeli troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend.
The worsening of violence in the northern Gaza area over the past two weeks have dire consequences, according to an emergency counser for the aid group,MSF.
Internet connectivity went down in northern Gaza late Saturday, making it difficult to gather information about 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 that it launched an operation against Hamas in that area.
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 been under siege by Israel since late last year in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
On Oct. 7, 2023, terrorists blew up holes in the security fence in Israel and kidnapped more than a 1000 people, mostly civilians. Approximately 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, many of them are believed to be dead.
In the middle is the U.N. peacekeeping mission, which has said that Israeli forces destroyed an observation tower and perimeter fence in southern Lebanon. It kept its positions despite Israeli pressure.
confusion and panic was caused when the Israeli military inadvertently labeled one target in an evacuated area south of Lebanon. The location was labeled as Grand Cinema ABC Verdun, a theater in an upscale shopping mall in central Beirut more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) away.
Six killed in a strike by the Hezbollah nonprofit Al-Qarsan (Al-Qassan)
Six people, including a child, were killed when a strike hit a car in central Gaza. The bodies were counted by AP journalists.
Al-Qard al-Hassan assured its customers that their funds were safe, despite its decision to target it. The people were leaving the areas surrounding the branches.
“AQAH is a cash-based organization. The cash will be trash” in the event of strikes, he said, adding that it has large accounts with big Lebanese banks.
“It’s a big deal,” said David Asher, an expert on illicit financing who has worked at the U.S. Defense and State Departments and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
The registered nonprofit, sanctioned by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, provides financial services and is also used by ordinary Lebanese. Its name in Arabic means “the benevolent loan,” and Hezbollah has used it to entrench its support among the Shiite population in a country where state and financial institutions have failed in recent years.
The intelligence official said that the strikes would target al-Hassan all over Lebanon. The official said that Hezbollah’s Al- Qard al-Hassan unit helps buy arms and pay operatives of the group.
