JERUSALEM: Israel struck what it said were Hezbollah arms facilities in southern Beirut on Saturday after claiming the Lebanese armed group launched a drone at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday home.

A drone reportedly targeted Netanyahu’s residence, as Hezbollah launched a barrage of projectiles into Israel from Lebanon, Israel said.

Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli premier and his wife were not in Caesarea during the drone attack, and “there were no injuries”. Earlier, the military said a drone fired from Lebanon had “hit a structure” in the central Israeli town.

Hezbollah said it fired rockets at northern Israel, including at a military base near the city of Haifa. There was no immediate comment from it on any drone attacks or attacks targeting Netanyahu’s house in the northern Israeli town of Caesarea.

PM, wife weren’t there when ‘drone was fired’; Hezbollah fires rockets at northern Israel

The “large salvo” of advanced rockets hit a military base east of Haifa, said Hezbollah, which has vowed to intensify attacks on Israel weeks into an all-out war that erupted on September 23.

Some of the rockets fired from Lebanon were intercepted, Israeli police said. But one person was killed and at least nine people were injured in different locations, the Israeli ambulance service said.

Five people were injured in Kiryat Ata, in the Haifa district, mostly from shrapnel injuries, said a spokesperson for emergency service provider Magen David Adom.

A rocket damaged a three-storey building and burned two cars in Kiryat Ata, with firefighting teams and ambulances dispatched to the area, AFP footage showed.

Strikes in Beirut

In Beirut’s southern suburbs, Israel carried out heavy strikes on several locations, leaving thick plumes of smoke hanging over the city into the evening.

The strikes targeted “a number of Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and a Hezbollah intelligence headquarters command centre”, Israel’s military said.

Earlier on Saturday, an Israeli strike killed two people as they were travelling on Lebanon’s main highway near the Christian-majority town of Jounieh — the first such attack on the area.

A spokesperson for Israel’s military said it was looking into the incident.

Witnesses described passengers running from a car after a blast, then seeing the charred remains of one passenger after a second blast.

Another strike killed at least four people in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, health authorities said. One of them was the mayor of a nearby town, making him the second mayor of a Lebanese town to be killed this week.

Israel’s military said on Saturday it had destroyed tunnel shafts and underground infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued an “urgent warning to residents of the southern suburb (of Dahiyeh), specifically those in… Haret Hreik neighbourhood”.

“You are located near facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah, against which the IDF (Israeli military) will be operating in the near future,” he wrote in Arabic on X. He later also issued warnings for the Burj al-Barajneh and Choueifat neighbourhoods.

‘Heavy price’

Netanyahu called the attack at his residence a “grave mistake” and added that Iranian-backed groups who tried to kill him and his wife would pay “a heavy price”. “Iran’s proxies who tried to assassinate me and my wife today made a grave mistake,” said Netanyahu, according to his office. Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the “attack” exposed the “true face” of Iran.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday, reviewing posture adjustments of United States forces, including the recent deployment of an anti-missile system to reinforce Israel’s defences against regional threats, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Austin also told his Israeli counterpart that he was relieved that PM Netanyahu was safe in the reported attack at his holiday home.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2024