Oct. 19 (UPI) — Hezbollah targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s home in Caesarea early Saturday morning with three explosive drones, two of which were destroyed, while the third missed the house.
Earlier reports indicated a drone struck Netanyahu’s home, but later reports said the drone missed the house.
“The prime minister and his wife were not at the residence as the time of the attack and there were no casualties,” Netanyahu spokesman Omer Dostri said.
“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” Netanyahu said in a post on X. “This will not deter me or the state of Israel from continuing our just war against our enemies in order to secure our future.”
The Israeli leader directly addressed Iranian leaders in his statement.
“I say to Iran and its proxies in its axis of evil: Anyone who tries to harm Israel’s citizens will pay a heavy price. We will continue to eliminate the terrorists and those who dispatch them.”
Netanyahu also said Israel will bring back the remaining hostages held in Gaza and make it possible for Israeli citizens to return to their homes near the Israel-Lebanon border.
“Israel is determined to achieve all our war objectives and change the security reality in our region for generations to come,” he said. “Together, we will fight, and with God’s help, together, we will win.”
The drones were among 180 projectiles launched by Hezbollah on Saturday morning, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The aerial attack killed a 50-year-old man who was struck by shrapnel while inside his vehicle in northern Israel and injured four others.
The Gaza Health Ministry, meanwhile, reported the IDF intensified attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza on Saturday.
The IDF killed at least three people at three hospitals in northern Gaza while firing on them with small arms and artillery, Gaza hospitals director Munir al-Bursh told the Washington Post.
The Gaza Health Ministry said one person died during an attack on the entrance to the Kamal Adwan Hospital while two others died when the Indonesian Hospital was besieged and lost its power.
IDF forces also targeted the al-Awda Hospital.
The United Nations reported more than 20,000 Gazans fled Jablaya in northern Gaza as the IDF intensified its operations there.
Israeli forces also made their deepest penetration into southern Lebanon since targeting Hezbollah militants there at the end of September.
The IDF’s 98th Division said it raided a Hezbollah headquarters in the “deepest area IDF forces have operated so far in ground operations in Lebanon.”
The military issued multiple evacuation warnings Saturday afternoon for the Dahiya and Burj al-Barajneh suburbs of southern Beirut.
A large explosion occurred in the Dahiya area near the Beirut international airport and an IDF drone strike killed a man and a woman who were driving on a highway north of Beirut, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
The IDF targeted five structures in Dahiya in which Hezbollah stored ammunition in “civilian buildings” and conducted “limited, localized, targeted ground raids” that destroyed more than than 50 tunnel shafts and an underground Hezbollah command center, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Saturday.
Saturday’s actions came after an autopsy on former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar showed he was killed by a bullet that struck his head during an unexpected encounter with IDF forces in Rafah on Wednesday, Israel national forensic institute Director Dr. Chen Kugel told the New York Times on Friday.
Kugel said Sinwar had suffered several serious wounds caused by shrapnel from either a small missile or a round fired by a tank that “smashed” one of his forearms.
Kugel supervised Sinwar’s autopsy and said the Israeli military took possession of his body afterward.
