Israel says drone launched towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house
Israeli security forces secure a road near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house, which the government says was targeted by a drone.
In short:
The Israeli government says a drone has been launched at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu's house.
In Gaza, more than 50 people have been killed in several Israeli strikes, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials
What's next?
Hezbollah said on Friday it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel.
The Israeli government says a drone has been fired at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house.
Neither he nor his wife were there, according to the leader's spokesman.
It was not clear if the house was hit during the attack on Saturday.
"The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake," Mr Netanyahu said.
It came as Iran's supreme leader vowed that Hamas would continue its fight against Israel following the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
Hezbollah did not 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 12 air strikes 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.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not at home during the drone strikes.
In September, Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport as Mr Netanyahu's plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, more than 50 people, including children, have been killed in several Israeli strikes in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter.
War with Lebanon intensifies
Saturday's strikes in Israel have come as the nation's conflict with Lebanon's Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks.
Hezbollah said on Friday it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel.
The militant group's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli air strike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October.
In addition to the drone reportedly launched at Mr Netanyahu's residence, Israel's military said 55 projectiles were fired in two separate barrages at northern Israel from Lebanon on Saturday morning.
Some were intercepted, the army said, and there were no immediate reports of any casualties.
Israel also said on Saturday it killed Hezbollah's deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel.
In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli air strike on Saturday hit a vehicle on a main highway north of Beirut, killing two people. It was unclear who was in the car when it was struck.
Israel's military said 55 projectiles were fired at northern Israel from Lebanon on Saturday morning.
Israeli strikes pound Gaza as Hamas rejects hostage release
A stand-off is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it is fighting in Gaza, with both signalling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas's leader Yahya Sinwar this week.
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.
"Hamas is alive and will stay alive," Mr Khamenei said.
Since Israel claimed Sinwar's death on Thursday and a top Hamas political official confirmed the death on Friday, Hamas has reiterated its stance that the hostages it took from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Rockets fired from Lebanon struck Kiryat Ata in northern Israel.
The staunch position pushed back against a statement by Mr Netanyahu that his country's military would keep fighting until the hostages are released, and would remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.
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 more than 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.
More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement that Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and that forces opened fire at the hospital's building and its courtyard, causing panic among patients and medical staff.
At Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, strikes hit the building's top floors, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement.
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 where the casualties were taken.
An AP reporter counted the bodies at the hospital. Another strike killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the Maghazi refugee camp, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where they were taken. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital.
Overnight on Friday, at least three houses were struck in northern Gaza, 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. The homes were hit in Jabaliya and at least 80 people were injured.
The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.
Opportunity in Sinwar's death
Yemeni soldiers shout slogans in front of a billboard showing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar during an anti-Israel rally.
Sinwar's killing could shift the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and air strikes in other areas of the country.
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Mr Netanyahu said in a speech on Thursday night: "Our war is not yet ended."
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 war.
In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar's killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
Israeli planes dropped leaflets over southern Gaza on Saturday showing a picture of Sinwar with the message that "Hamas will no longer rule Gaza", echoing language used by Mr Netanyahu.
"Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace," the leaflet, written in Arabic, read, according to residents of the southern city of Khan Younis and images circulating online.
The leaflet's wording came from a statement by Mr Netanyahu on Thursday.
Evacuation orders
Residents and medics said Israeli forces had tightened their siege on Jabalia, the largest of the enclave's eight historic camps, which it encircled by also sending tanks to nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and issuing evacuation orders to residents.
Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and they denied there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas.
Residents and medical officials said Israeli forces were bombing houses and besieging hospitals, preventing medical and food supplies from entering to force them to leave the camp.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army to evacuate the hospital or leave the patients, many in a critical condition, unattended.
"The Israeli occupation is intensifying its targeting of the health system in the northern Gaza Strip by besieging and directly targeting the Indonesian Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital, and Al-Awda Hospital during the past hours and its insistence on putting them out of service," the Gaza health ministry said.
It said two patients in intensive care at the Indonesian Hospital died "as a result of the hospital's siege and the power outage and medical supplies".
Israel's military said the troops operating in the area had been "briefed on the importance of mitigating harm to civilians and medical infrastructure".
"It is emphasised that the hospital continues to operate without disruption and in full capacity, and there was no intentional fire directed at it," it said.
Reuters/AP
By：https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-20/israel-says-drone-launched-towards-benjamin-netanyahus-house/104493702(责任编辑：admin)
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