Israeli attacks on Gaza and Hezbollah in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Netanyahu’s house, as Israel presses its offensives
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.
At Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, strikes hit the building’s top floors, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement. Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight Friday, killing at least 30 people, 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 September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.
People ran for cover as missiles rained down on the city in the north. There was a rocket landing in the area, and Associated Press reporters saw burned cars and a damaged building. Nine people were lightly injured, said Itzik Billet, the Haifa area commander.
The Israeli fire service also said it was battling several blazes resulting from missiles in the Shlomi area, less than a mile (1 kilometer) from the Lebanese border.
Israel intensified its strikes on Dahiyeh, a crowded residential area in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has a strong presence there, but it is also home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group.
The military of Israel gave fresh warnings to the two buildings in Haret Hriek. Israel is issuing warnings every day for people in parts of Lebanon to leave their buildings. Some 400,000 children are among the one million people displaced by the fighting.
Israel said Hezbollah’s deputy commander was killed in Bint Jbeil. The army said that Nasser Rashid was in charge of attacks against Israel.
The health ministry said in Lebanon that Israeli jets hit a vehicle on a main highway, killing two people. Someone was in the car when it was hit.
The U.S. is urging Israel to press for a cease-fire in Gaza following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week. Despite months of negotiation, neither Israel or Hamas has renewed their interest in the deal.
On Friday, the supreme leader of Iran said Sinwar’s death was a loss, but noted that Hamas continued despite killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him.
Sinwar was the chief architect of the 2023 Hamas raid on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 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.
A United Nations school sheltering displaced people in the west of Gaza City, was also hit, killing several people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense first responders.
Most of the population of Gaza has been displaced due to the war and they are struggling to find food, medicine and fuel.
Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the fighting.
Israeli strikes on Beit Lahiya and the Gaza Strip during the 1948-2009 Israel-Hezbollah War: Oscillations During the Fourth and Fifth Israeli Wars
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 United States is meanwhile investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran, according to three U.S. officials. A fourth official said the documents appear to be legit.
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.
The dead from the strikes were a mother and son, as well as her children and her daughter-law, 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.
The charity Doctors Without Borders called for an end to Israeli attacks on hospitals in the Gaza Strip after it was mentioned that troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend.
“The ever-worsening escalation of violence and non-stop Israeli military operations that we have been witnessing over the past two weeks in northern Gaza have horrifying consequences,” said Anna Halford, an emergency coordinator for MSF.
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 that it launched an operation against the Hamas group in the area.
During the course of the war, the Israeli forces have returned to the densely populated urban refugee camp of 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.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
