Israel announced, this Saturday 19, that a drone launched from Lebanon was targeting the prime minister’s house Benjamin Netanyahuwho was absent from the scene, amid the Israeli offensive against the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which claimed rocket fire against several regions of the country.
Already Gaza Strip (Israel’s southern border), Civil Defense reported that 33 people died on Friday night in an Israeli bombing of the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the north of the Palestinian territory.
Israel launched a new military operation in northern Gaza earlier this month, alleging that militiamen from the Islamist movement Hamas were regrouping in the area.
More than 400 people have died in this region since the operation began, according to local medical sources.
The Palestinian Islamist movement, which has governed Gaza since 2007, is weakened after a year of war and the assassination on Wednesday of its leader, Yahya Sinwar.
The war in Gaza began after the incursion, on October 7, 2023, of fighters who killed 1,206 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still in captivity, according to AFP counts based in official Israeli data.
In the Israeli reprisal offensive against Gaza, a territory of 2.4 million inhabitants before the war, 42,519 Palestinians died, according to data from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health, considered reliable by the UN.
Shots fired from Lebanon against Israel…
The Gaza conflict spread to Lebanon, where Israel intensified bombing and launched, on September 30, ground operations aimed at weakening the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and supported by Iran.
Hezbollah responded with rocket fire at Israel, where anti-aircraft sirens sounded this Saturday in several northern cities. The Israeli army estimated that at least 115 projectiles were launched during the day from Lebanon.
Netanyahu’s office reported that a drone was launched toward the prime minister’s private residence in Caesarea, a coastal city in central Israel, clarifying that the incident left no victims and that the prime minister was not at the scene.
The Israeli army indicated that the drone, coming from Lebanon, hit a “structure” in Cesárea, without clarifying whether it was part of the residence’s land.
A man in his 50s died this Saturday in the port city of Acre after being hit by shrapnel, Israeli emergency services reported.
Hezbollah announced that it fired rockets at the Haifa region, Israel’s main northern port, as well as Safed. The group also attacked a military base, in response, it said, to Israeli “aggressions” in Lebanon.
…and of Israel against Lebanon
An Israeli bombing hit this Saturday for the first time the highway that connects Beirut to northern Lebanon, killing two people, Lebanese authorities announced.
Israel also bombed the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, a Hezbollah stronghold, after calling on residents to evacuate the area. In the east of the country, four people were killed in another Israeli attack, including the mayor of the municipality of Sohmor, the official Lebanese news agency ANI reported.
Israel says it seeks to neutralize Hezbollah in regions close to its border and allow the return to the north of the country of around 60,000 displaced people, who were forced to leave their homes a year ago due to rocket fire by the Islamist movement.
At least 1,418 people have died in Lebanon since Israeli bombings against Hezbollah began on September 23, according to an AFP count based on official data. The UN counts around 700,000 displaced people in the country.
The war gives no respite, despite the presence in southern Lebanon of Unifil, the United Nations peacekeeping mission created in 1978 for this country.
The head of European Union diplomacy, Josep Borrell, suggested this Saturday strengthening the UN mission, although he stressed that this “would require a decision by the UN Security Council”.
“Powder keg” in the Middle East
“The possibility of a war in the region is always serious, and no one other than the Zionist regime wants it to happen,” said the head of Iranian diplomacy, Abbas Araghchi, during a visit to Istanbul.
“We want to reduce tensions, but as we have said several times, we are prepared for any scenario and any situation”, he continued, adding that the region has become a “powder keg”.
Iran fired around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in revenge for the assassinations of an Iranian general, as well as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in July in Tehran and Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassann Nasrallah in Beirut , last month.
Haniyeh’s successor, Yahya Sinwar, died on Wednesday in an Israeli operation in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The leader was considered by Israel as the mastermind of the attack on October 7, 2023.
Netanyahu said on Friday that Sinwar’s death marked “the beginning of the end” of the war in Gaza, and several foreign leaders shared hope that it would pave the way for a ceasefire.
However, according to several analysts, the death of the Hamas leader further disorganized the movement, which would now be dispersed into small cells, which could complicate future negotiations.
“The war has not stopped and the massacres continue unabated,” lamented Jemaa Abu Mendi, a 21-year-old Gaza resident.
