Drone targets Israeli PM's home

Drone targets Israeli PM's home as Gaza strikes kill more than 50

The Israeli government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home on Saturday, causing no casualties, as fighting with Lebanon's Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza showed no sign of abating after the killing of the Hamas mastermind in an Oct. 7 attack last year.

The Israeli military said dozens of shells were fired from Lebanon a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase in the fighting. Netanyahu's office said the drone targeted his home in the Mediterranean coastal city of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife were there. It was not clear if the home was hit.

"The Iranian proxies who tried today to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake," Netanyahu said.

Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for the drone attack but said it had carried out several rocket attacks on northern and central Israel. The strikes came as Israel was expected to respond to an attack earlier this month by Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Israel carried out at least ten airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a densely populated area where Hezbollah offices are located, Lebanese authorities said. The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets.

In Gaza, Israeli forces fired on hospitals in the northern part of the devastated Palestinian enclave, killing more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.

"The possibility of war in the region remains a serious concern," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said during a visit to Turkey. Defense ministers from the Group of Seven nations warned of escalation and "all-out war."

Shelling from Lebanon targets northern Israel

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified. Hezbollah said Friday it planned to send more guided missiles and explosive drones into Israel. The militant group's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier this month.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that about 180 shells were fired from Lebanon. Israeli medical services said a 50-year-old man was hit by shrapnel and killed in northern Israel, and four other people were wounded. In the northern city of Kiryat Ata, one rocket landed. Itzik Belit, commander of the Haifa district, said nine people were lightly wounded.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in eastern Baalbek killed one person and wounded four others.

An Israeli military official said an Israeli strike hit targets in the Bekaa Valley.

Lebanon's Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle on a highway north of Beirut, killing two people.

Israel has issued near-daily warnings for people to leave buildings and villages in parts of Lebanon. The fighting has displaced more than a million people, including about 400,000 children.

Israel also said it killed Hezbollah's deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The military said Nasser Rashid had overseen attacks on Israel.

Israel drops leaflets showing Sinwar's body.

Israel and Hamas signaled resistance to ending the war in Gaza after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the main architect of the raid on Israel more than a year ago that killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped 250 others. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, and Israel says at least 30 of them are dead.

Israeli forces dropped leaflets in southern Gaza on Saturday, showing Sinwar dead with blood pouring from his forehead. "Sinwar has ruined your lives," the leaflet said. "Whoever lays down his arms and returns the kidnapped to us, we will allow him to leave and live in peace."

Hamas has stressed that the hostages will not be released until a ceasefire is reached and Israeli forces withdraw. Netanyahu has said the Israeli military will fight until the hostages are freed and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.

The Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians but say more than half of those killed were women and children.

More strikes hit Gaza on Saturday, with the Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel saying they had destroyed internet networks in the north.

The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya, and troops opened fire on it, causing panic. The Israeli military said it was operating near the hospital, and "there was no deliberate fire directed at it."

The military also said it was looking into the matter after the al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, north of Gaza, said strikes hit the upper floors, wounding several staff members. It later said the military hit an ambulance, wounding four people, including a paramedic.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry's ambulance and emergency services, said three homes in Jabaliya were bombed overnight, killing at least 30 people, more than half of them women and children. At least 80 people were injured.

Palestinian residents said the Israeli army forced hundreds of displaced people to leave Jabalia and head to Gaza City.

"The occupation expelled us at gunpoint. Tanks and heavy armed forces surrounded us," said Umm Sayed, a mother of three. She said many young men were apparently taken for questioning, and most were later released.

The Israeli military described the incident as an evacuation and said it had detained militants for questioning.

A U.N. school housing displaced people was hit west of Gaza City, killing several people, according to members of the Hamas-run civil defense.

"What is this? According to an Associated Press video, there is a clinic, and there are children," said Bashir Haddad, a displaced person there. A boy gathered body parts on a piece of cardboard.

Elsewhere in central Gaza, at least ten people, including two children, were killed when a house was hit in the town of al-Zawaida, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Another strike killed 11 people from the same family in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, the hospital said.

The war has devastated swaths of Gaza, displacing about 90 percent of its 2.3 million people and leaving them struggling to find food, water, medicine, and fuel.