Netanyahu residence targeted as Hezbollah launches barrage at Israel
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Follow topic:
JERUSALEM - Israel said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Oct 19, as Hezbollah launched a barrage of projectiles into Israel from its northern neighbour Lebanon.
On its southern front, Israel hammered Gaza with air strikes, with an overnight raid on Jabalia in the north killing 33 people, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
Mr Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli Premier and his wife were not at their residence in the central town of Caesarea during the drone attack and there were no injuries.
Earlier, the military said a drone fired from Lebanon had “hit a structure” in Caesarea.
Sirens blared across Israel throughout the morning as Hezbollah fired projectiles from various locations in Lebanon.
The Iran-backed group said it fired a large salvo of advanced rockets at a military base in Israel’s Haifa region.
A man in the northern Israeli port city of Acre died after being struck by shrapnel, the Magen David Adom emergency service said, while shrapnel also wounded five people in the Haifa city of Kiryat Ata.
In late September, Israel ramped up air strikes on Lebanon
The fighting in Gaza came after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
Sinwar, accused of masterminding the attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, was seen as pivotal to ending the Gaza war and securing the release of Israeli hostages.
On Oct 18, Qatar-based Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya reiterated no hostages would be freed “unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops”.
Iran’s 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”.
As fighting raged in Gaza, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal announced “33 deaths and dozens of wounded” in an Israeli strike on the northern area of Jabalia overnight.
The Israeli military said it was “looking into it”.
Early on Oct 19, three houses in the Jabalia refugee camp were targeted, the agency said, while witnesses said 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.
People gather outside a collapsed building following Israeli bombardment in the Saftawi district in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Oct 15.
PHOTO: AFP
Israeli forces, accused of targeting health facilities, were shelling Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza, medics there said.
The violence has dashed hopes Sinwar’s death might bring the war closer to an end.
“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.”
Calls for hostage release, end of war
Mr Netanyahu said that while Sinwar’s killing did not spell the end of the war, it was “the beginning of the end”.
US President Joe Biden, along with the leaders of Germany, France and Britain, urged “the immediate necessity to bring the hostages home to their families, for ending the war in Gaza, and ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians”.
In August, Mr Netanyahu called Sinwar “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”.
Ms Ayala Metzger, the daughter-in-law of killed hostage Yoram Metzger, said that with Sinwar dead, it was unacceptable that the hostages remained in captivity.
An Israeli autopsy found that Sinwar was initially wounded in the arm by shrapnel, but killed by a gunshot to the head
‘Hell on earth’
Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with its attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023,
During the attack, militants took 251 hostages back to 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 42,519 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.
People attempt to extricate a man from underneath the rubble following Israeli bombardment in the Saftawi district in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, on Oct 15.
PHOTO: AFP
A conservative estimate puts the death toll among children in Gaza at more than 14,100, said Mr James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency Unicef.
For the one million children in the besieged territory, “ Gaza is the real-world embodiment of hell on earth
Criticism has been mounting over the civilian toll and lack of food and aid reaching Gaza, where the UN has warned of famine.
‘Serious’ possibility of regional war
Smoke rising from an Israeli airstrike in a village in southern Lebanon on Oct 19.
PHOTO: AFP
There is also growing concern about the toll in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting a war with Hamas ally Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said two people were killed on Oct 19 in an Israeli strike on a vital highway north of Beirut.
Since late September, the war has left at least 1,418 people dead in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanon’s 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 Oct 18 and 19, the Israeli military reported drones being launched from Syria.
Iran conducted a missile strike on Israel on Oct 1, for which Israel has vowed to retaliate.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Oct 19 that the “possibility of war in the region is always serious”.
“We want to reduce tensions, but... we are ready for any scenario.” AFP
