Netanyahu labels Iran-backed Hezbollah attempt on his life ‘a grave mistake’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of trying to assassinate him, and vowed those responsible would “pay a heavy price”.

Israeli security forces secure a road near where Israel's government says a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Caesarea, Israel Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of trying to assassinate him, with the Middle East already on edge after Israel had vowed retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage.

An official in Gaza said an Israeli strike in north Gaza late on Saturday had killed at least 73 people, with many more feared trapped under the rubble. Israel said it had hit a “Hamas terror target”.

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

“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” Mr Netanyahu said.

“Anyone who tries to harm Israel’s citizens will pay a heavy price,” he said in comments directed at Tehran and “its proxies”, which include Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a group Israel that has been at war with since late September.

The Lebanese group, armed and financed by Iran, did not acknowledge the attack, but Iran’s UN mission said “this action was taken” by Hezbollah.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said a drone “hit a building in Caesarea, while trying to hit the Prime Minister”.

Caesarea is about 20km south of the Haifa city area, which Hezbollah has regularly targeted. Ofek Mor, a 20-year-old Caesarea resident, said he felt “unsafe like I’ve never felt before in Israel”.

While fighting a two-front war, in Lebanon and Gaza, Israel has also vowed to respond to Iran’s October 1 missile barrage with a “deadly, precise and surprising” attack, according to Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Iran said it had fired 200 missiles at its arch enemy in response to the killing of an Iranian general and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Gaza’s civil defence agency on Saturday said a sweeping Israeli military operation had killed more than 400 people in two weeks in the territory’s north.

Hours later, it reported another Israeli airstrike had killed at least 73 Palestinians in a residential area in Beit Lahia. “There are still martyrs under the rubble,” said civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Israel’s military said the toll figures given by Gaza authorities “do not align” with the information it possessed.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has vowed to intensify attacks on Israel, and on Saturday it launched rocket barrages at Israel’s north, where rescuers said one man was killed by shrapnel.

Hamas, Hezbollah and allied Iran-backed groups in the region have vowed to keep fighting after Israeli troops on Wednesday killed the Palestinian movement’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza, more than a year into the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

“Hamas is a reality in Palestine that no one can ignore, no one can destroy,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state TV on Saturday after meeting a Hamas representative in Istanbul.

Israel, vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in northern Gaza, launched a major air and ground assault on October 6, tightening its siege on the war-battered area and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing.

“We have recovered more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip,” Mr Bassal said, including Jabalia and its refugee camp, since Israel’s operation began.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the civil defence agency’s reports from Gaza, including that an overnight air raid on Jabalia killed 33 people.

“More than a year has passed, and every day our blood is shed,” displaced Gazan Nasser Shaqura said outside a hospital in Deir el-Balah, where victims of an Israeli airstrike were taken.

“Every day, every hour, there is a massacre,” he said. “This is what our lives have become.”

Palestinians are living through “unspeakable horrors” in the north of the Gaza Strip, acting UN humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya said on X.

The violence has dashed hopes that Sinwar’s death could bring the war to an end or lead to the swift release of 97 hostages still held by militants in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israelis rallied again in Tel Aviv calling for a deal to free the captives. The war was sparked by the unprecedented Hamas attack last year that resulted in the deaths of 1206 people, mostly civilians.

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.

The director of the Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza said Israeli forces were shelling the facility.

Gaza’s health ministry said two patients had died, blaming the Israeli siege and lack of medical supplies. The Israeli military reported troops operating near the facility but said “no intentional fire” had been directed at it.

Since late September, the war has killed at least 1454 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanese health ministry figures.

AFP