Drone strike launched toward Benjamin Netanyahu’s home, Israel says; no injuries reported

A drone was launched toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home on Saturday, the Israeli government said. 

Sirens wailed Saturday morning, warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. The drone was launched towards Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea, but neither he nor his wife were home, his spokesperson said in a statement. There were no injuries. 

There was no information given about where the drone was launched from or who might be responsible for the attempted attack. Israel did not say if the drone was intercepted or landed elsewhere.

It’s the second strike aimed at Netanyahu in recent months. In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had a call with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Saturday, the Pentagon said in a statement, during which they discussed “regional security developments” including the recent deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system. During the call, Austin told Gallant that he was “relieved” Netanyahu was safe after the drone attack.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, more than 50 people have been killed in several Israeli strikes, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter.

Saturday’s strikes into Israel come as its war in Lebanon with Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said Friday that 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 airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October.

Israel’s military said some 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 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 airstrike 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.

A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ 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,” Khamenei said.

Since Israel announced Sinwar’s death Thursday and a top Hamas political official confirmed the death Friday, Hamas has reiterated its stance that the hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The staunch position pushed back against a statement by Netanyahu that his country’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.

Israel says 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 caused the deaths of 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.

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 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% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.

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.

Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a Thursday night speech announcing the killing that “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.