Israel's government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house Saturday, with no casualties, as fighting with Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Gaza -based Hamas showed no pause after the killing of the Hamas mastermind of last year’s Oct. 7 attack.
Israel's military said dozens of projectiles were launched from Lebanon a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase in fighting. Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife were there. It wasn't clear if the house was hit.
“The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake,” Netanyahu said.
Hezbollah didn't claim responsibility for the drone attack, but said it carried out several rocket attacks on northern and central Israel. The barrage came as Israel is expected to respond to an attack earlier this month by Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas.
Israel in turn carried out at least 10 airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area home to Hezbollah's offices, Lebanese authorities said. Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets.
In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at hospitals in the Palestinian enclave's battered north, and strikes killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.
“The possibility of war in the region remains a serious concern,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said while visiting Turkey. Group of Seven defense ministers warned against escalation and “all-out war.”
The Israel-Hezbollah war has intensified. Hezbollah said Friday it planned to send more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon early this month.
Israel’s military on Saturday said about 180 projectiles were fired from Lebanon. A 50-year-old man was hit by shrapnel and killed in northern Israel, and four other people were wounded, Israel’s medical services said. In the northern city of Kiryat Ata, one rocket landed. Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa area, said nine people were slightly injured.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in eastern Baaloul village killed five people, including the mayor of nearby Sohmor village. An Israeli military official confirmed that the IDF struck targets in the Bekaa Valley.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle on a highway north of Beirut, killing two people.
Israel has issued near-daily warnings for people to leave buildings and villages in parts of Lebanon. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, including around 400,000 children.
Israel also said it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel.
Israel and Hamas have signaled resistance to ending the war in Gaza after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the chief architect of the raid on Israel more than a year ago that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
Israel’s military on Saturday dropped leaflets in southern Gaza showing Sinwar dead, blood running down his forehead. "Sinwar destroyed your lives,” it said. “Whoever lays down his weapons and returns the kidnapped people to us, we will allow him to leave and live in peace.”
Hamas has reiterated that the hostages won't be released until there is a cease-fire and Israeli troops withdraw. Netanyahu says Israel's military will fight until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don't distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children.
More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday, and Palestinian communications company Paltel said they knocked out internet networks in the north.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and forces opened fire at it, causing panic. Israel's military said it was operating near the hospital and “there was no intentional fire directed at it.”
The military also said it was looking into the matter after Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, said strikes hit the top floors, wounding several staff members. It later said the military hit an ambulance, wounding four people, including a medic.
Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight, killing at least 30 people, more than half women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least 80 were wounded.
Palestinian residents said Israel’s military was forcing hundreds of displaced people to leave Jabaliya and head to Gaza City.
“The occupation evicted us at gunpoint,” said Umm Sayed, a mother of three. “Tanks and heavy armed forces were encircling us.” She said many young men were taken apparently for interrogation, and most were later released.
Israel’s military described it as an evacuation and said it detained militants for questioning.
A U.N. school sheltering displaced people west of Gaza City was hit, killing several people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense first responders.
“What is this? There is a clinic and there are children,” said Bashir Haddad, a displaced person there, according to AP video. A boy collected body parts on a piece of cardboard.
Elsewhere in central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Another strike killed 11 people from the same family in the Maghazi refugee camp, the hospital said.
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.
Associated Press writers Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
22 Comments
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NB
This whole crisis in the Middle East is the initiative of its mastermind, the Mullah regime of Iran. This state, which is a member of the UN, tries to annihilate another UN member state. The Iranian plan to commit genocide to Israel is madness. Iran will pay for this.
GDBD
You must be kidding. Since Zionists came in large number back to Middle East, Middle East has not had one peaceful day. Same was Europe when Jews were living there in large numbers.
Israel was created out of nothing by driving out/killing Palestinians and other locals. And no, Jews had no significant presence on that land in last 2000 years since Romans crashed them and sent them away. Looking what they are doing today, tells a lot what they might have done back then to receive such a harsh punishment.
Just because it is part of UN, does not clean the sins it committed since the unfortunate day of its creation. Israel is a plague and the sooner Middle East get rid of it, the better for everyone.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Regardless of what you think about it, you aren't getting rid of a nuclear power.
theFu
I can understand why enemies of Israel would target the Prime Minister. Just opens the door for targeting the puppet masters of Hezbollah and Hamas in Tehran. Bet that Israel has better aim. There are certainly more evil targets in Tehran to be taken out.
sakurasuki
What happened in Gaza now being repeated in Lebanon.
Mr Kipling
Gaza and Lebanon are part of the Zionist "Greater Israel" plan. The US in public says it does not support this dream yet continues to supply the bombs and missiles killing the the thousands of civilians in these areas. It is long time to investigate the Jewish lobby around the world and remove its influence on world affairs.
Desert Tortoise
Have you already forgotten what Israel did to Lebanon in 1982 and again in 2006? If you followed those invasions and the post 1982 occupation of southern Lebanon nothing Israel is doing in Gaza should surprise anyone.
What also should not surprise anyone is Israel being defeated. Hezbollah is the only military force to have ever defeated Israel and they did so twice before. Israel has killed a previous Hezbollah leader when Israeli gunship helicopters attacked his motorcade. That didn't defeat Hezbollah either.
What many people either do not know or forget is that a war is not over unless and until both sides agree it is over. As long as the Palestinians are willing to fight Israel has not won. They are just digging an ever deeper hole for themselves.
sakurasuki
Not sure how ordinary US citizens really benefitted when their hardworking tax money being diverted into particular country in the middle east.
https://readsludge.com/2024/08/27/aipac-officially-surpasses-100-million-in-spending-on-2024-elections/
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2024/9/24/how-aipac-shapes-unconditional-us-support-for-israel
sakurasuki
@Desert Tortoise
No, it wasn't forgotten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern_Lebanon
Alfie Noakes
According to US politician Rep. Guy Reschenthaler there are over 20,000 Americans in the Israel Occupation Force in Palestine. The IOF has around 80,000 troops for their imperial expansion and genocide, which means over 25% of those committing these monstrous war crimes and crimes against humanity are Americans.
The IOF is a joint coalition force funded by the US, armed by the US, trained in the US and staffed by Americans. It's an American genocide, supported by their entire political elite, and that of the UK, Germany amongst others.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2024/USspendingIsrael
Desert Tortoise
Here is the sick twisted truth. The evangelical mob, which is a substantial proportion of the US population and the membership of the US Congress, fervently believe that an aggressive and hegemonic Israel at war with its neighbors has to start the grand final war, Armageddon, that will bring the second coming of Christ and salvation for all Christians. They also believe that if the US supports Israel then god will treat the US better during the end of time.
As kooky as that sounds, that is what it taught in churches and bible studies all across the US. No barbarity by the Israelis is too awful if it hastens the second coming of Christ. I could not make this sh, er I mean stuff up. I was told this in complete sincerity but some holy rollers I knew when I lived in Anaheim who were always bugging me to to "go to church". When they told me this I was incredulous and said "you gotta be effing kidding me". Nope. they were completely serious.
Desert Tortoise
He's full of hooey. At any given time there are around 1,200 US citizens serving in the IDF. Most of these are children of Israelis.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-04-05/ty-article/.premium/why-do-u-s-jews-join-the-idf-new-study-offers-surprising-answers/00000180-5b9f-d615-a9bf-dfdf29280000
Fos
As a matter of fact we see those type of individual everywhere, no need to get into specifics :)
The US administration in extremely good at spreading a false narrative on media outlets to promote their interests. Do not forget that this specific war in the Middle East could be ended the exact day when Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of State and the Defence Minister, state their opposition to the powerful military apparatus in Washington, the same organization which in turn is controlled by the lobbies in Wall Street. From the start of the year United States of Americ, Japan main ally, has sent 18 billion dollars to Israel of weapons to sustain the death and destruction in Gaza and Lebanon. It helps to remind you that the top five arms manufacturers in the world are all American and that Wall Street is an all time highs.
When you vote next week in Japan, those elements should be put into context, and this country should choose their allies based on other factors, ethical, social and morals, rather than being bombarded by the China hysterical rhetoric scattered by Washington
WoodyLee
When 50 innocent souls are ended / day it's only a matter of time before this genocide mastermind and his partners are targeted.
Desert Tortoise
The larger number attributed by the member of Congress are dual nationals, men with US and Israeli citizenship living in the US often IDF veterans who remain reservists in the IDF who had to return and fight. These are not the same as the so-called "Lone Soldiers", US citizens mostly but not exclusively Jewish who grew up and lived their lives in the US who decided to leave the US and join the Israeli military.
Desert Tortoise
Nope. Number 4 is AVIC, a Chinese company. Of the top ten, six are American, one is British and the remaining three Chinese.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-top-25-defense-companies-by-revenue/
WoodyLee
@ Desert Tortoise
"Here is the sick twisted truth. The evangelical mob, which is a substantial proportion of the US population and the membership of the US Congress, fervently believe that an aggressive and hegemonic Israel at war with its neighbors has to start the grand final war, Armageddon, that will bring the second coming of Christ and salvation for all Christians. They also believe that if the US supports Israel then god will treat the US better during the end of time."
This is what the Zionists nurtured and safeguarded within America for the past I would say 80 years.
Most Evangelical Churches in the U.S. are sending their teens and youngsters to Israel's Kibbutz Camps on a 6 to 1 year trips financially sponsored by AIPAC and other Jewish Groups under titles like bible studies, they are basically being taught the principles of Zionism along with other socialism, many receive basic military training too.
Some kids return to Israel later on in their lives other reject it and never return as they become aware of the scheme.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz
Dave Fair
sorry but how many Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hamas, Hezbollah and other leaders has he ordered the assassinations of? I think a "touché" by Netanyahu is enough said!
Desert Tortoise
Laughable. The fundie christians view Jews with contempt, saying they will all go to that hot place down below for rejecting christ. Remember it is a matter of faith that the Jews killed christ. For a Jew to promote the idea that Israel has to start Armageddon so there will be the so called second coming would force said Jew to admit that there was a first coming of the savior, and by that admit their own religion is false. No that idea is a purely "christian" invention.
Again nonsense. We have a school age boy and my step daughter went to school here. This town is very conservative and religious but the churches here aren't sending kids off to Israel. Now most Temples certainly do, for a "Birthright" trip to Israel. There is nothing in the press about it either.
I think you might be confusing children with the members of Congress who's many trips to Israel are funded by AIPAC /:
Zaphod
Fos
So far, so true.
No. However, it could have been avoided if the Biden admin had not re-opened the money spigot to both Hamas (via Unra) and Iran, and scuttled the Abraham accords. Trump had put a lid on the situation, Biden removed it. Fact.
You forget to mention that the US also supplies weapons to Egypt, Jordan and the gulf states. The US arms manufacturers benefit in any case.
...in response to terrorist death and destruction in Israel. You are blanking out one half of the picture.
Fos
Just to put things into context.
Defence News is a publication controlled by Sightline Media Group, based in Tysons, Virginia, and the publisher is Michael Reinstein. The name tells you a story already.
American masterminds and their fellows countries have all the interest to divert to attention to the wrongs of China, but we are pretty far away since military spending by the USA reached $916 billion in 2023, against China's $296 billion. Russia came third with $109 billion. The data is from SIPRI.
The SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies in the world are in order:
Lockheed Martin Corp (USA)
Raytheon Technologies (USA)
Northrop Grumman Corp (USA)
Boeing (USA)
General Dynamics Corp (USA)
The first Chinese company is NORINCO at number 7, after Britain BAE Systems (another big partner of USA)
Sipri is the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Fos
Hi Zaphold
I am not trying and nobody should forget the unjustified terrorist attack against Israel on the 8th of October organized by Hamas.
However, we should not forget that the conflict between Israel and Palestine did not start the 8th of October: all the wars have an history trail which needs to be analyzed and studied to prevent recurrence.