Netanyahu residence targeted as Hizbollah launches barrage at Israel

Netanyahu says Hezbollah tried to kill him

By AFP - Oct 19,2024 - Last updated at Oct 19,2024

Smoke fumes cover a neighbourhood of Beirut's southern suburbs near Beirut International Airport following an Israeli airstrike on on October 19, 2024 (AFP photo)

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday accused Iran-backed Hizbollah of trying to assassinate him, with the Middle East already on edge after Israel had vowed retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage.

Netanyahu's office said a drone was launched toward his residence in the central town of Caesarea on Saturday but he and his wife were not home at the time and there were no injuries.

"The attempt by Iran's proxy Hizbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake," Netanyahu said in a statement.

Throughout the morning, sirens blared in Israel as Lebanese militants Hizbollah launched projectiles from various locations.

The Iran-backed group said it fired a large salvo of advanced rockets at a military base in the Haifa region of northern Israel.

Late last month Israel dramatically stepped up its air strikes on Lebanon and sent in ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges.

In Gaza, the fighting came after the killing on Wednesday of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, accused of masterminding the October 7 attack on Israel, which had raised hopes of an end to the war and the release of Israeli hostages.

On Friday, Qatar-based Hamas official Khalil Al Hayya reiterated the Palestinian group's position that no hostages would be freed "unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops".

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose country is also a key backer of Hamas, said the group "will not end at all with the martyrdom of Sinwar".

With fighting raging in Gaza, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal announced "33 deaths and dozens of wounded" in an Israeli strike Jabalia overnight.

The Israeli military said it was "looking into it".

Early on Saturday, three houses in the Jabalia refugee camp were targeted, the agency said, while witnesses told AFP there was heavy gunfire and artillery shelling in the direction of the camp.

Israeli forces have been concentrating their efforts on northern Gaza in recent days, saying Hamas was regrouping there.

Witnesses also reported Israeli shelling in central Gaza's Al Bureij camp.

"We always thought that when this moment arrived, the war would end and our lives would return to normal," 21-year-old Gazan Jemaa Abu Mendi said, referring to Sinwar's death in the territory's far south.

"But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is quite the opposite. The war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated."

'Opportunity'

Netanyahu called Sinwar's killing an "important landmark in the decline of the evil rule of Hamas".

While it did not spell the end of the war, the killing of Israel's most wanted man was "the beginning of the end", the Israeli leader added.

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel's top arms provider, said Sinwar's death was "an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas".

In a joint statement, Biden and the leaders of Germany, France and Britain emphasised "the immediate necessity to bring the hostages home to their families, for ending the war in Gaza, and ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians".

Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged Israel's government and international mediators to leverage "this major achievement to secure hostages' return".

In August, Netanyahu called Sinwar "the only obstacle to a hostage deal".

Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of killed hostage Yoram Metzger, said with Sinwar dead it was "unacceptable" that the hostages would "stay in captivity even one more day".

But she added: "We [are] afraid that Netanyahu does not intend on stopping the war, nor does he intend to bring the hostages back."

An Israeli autopsy found that Sinwar was initially wounded in the arm by shrapnel, but killed by a gunshot to the head, the New York Times reported.

The newspaper said it was unclear who fired the shot or when, or what weapon was used.

'Hell on Earth'

Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with its October 7 attack last year that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

During the attack, militants took 251 hostages back into Gaza. Ninety-seven are still being held there, including 34 who the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.

Israel's campaign to crush Hamas and bring back the hostages has killed 42,500 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.

A conservative estimate puts the death toll among children in Gaza at over 14,100, said James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations children's agency UNICEF.

For the one million children in the besieged territory, "Gaza is the real-world embodiment of hell on Earth", he said.

Criticism has been mounting over the civilian toll and lack of food and aid reaching Gaza, where the UN has warned of famine.

'Devastation' in Lebanon

Israel is also fighting a war with Hamas ally Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Lebanon's health ministry said two people were killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike on a vital highway north of Beirut.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon warned the escalation was "causing widespread destruction of towns and villages" in the country's south.

Since late September, the war has left at least 1,418 people dead in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.

The war has also drawn in other Iran-aligned armed groups, including in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

On Friday and Saturday the Israeli military reported drones being launched from Syria.

Iran conducted a missile strike on Israel on October 1, for which Israel has vowed to retaliate.

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