Netanyahu says Iran-backed Hezbollah attempt on his life ‘a grave mistake’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says those behind an Iran-backed Hezbollah attempt to assassinate him will ‘pay a heavy price’.
A drone from Lebanon was flown toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence near Tel Aviv before exploding early Saturday, his office said, in an attack that comes a day after Hezbollah threatened to escalate its conflict with Israel.
The prime minister and his family weren’t present there at the time of the attack, according to his office, and no injuries or damage were immediately reported.
Three uncrewed aerial vehicles crossed into Israeli territory, the military said. Two of the drones were intercepted while the other bypassed Israeli aerial defense systems and reached the seaside town of Caesarea where it hit a structure, the military added. The drone didn’t set off warning sirens. A large explosion was heard, according to police.
This is the first time a drone has exploded in Caesarea, which is famous for ancient Roman archaeological monuments and for being the location of the private home of Netanyahu and his family.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has launched thousands of projectiles into Israel since last year, didn’t comment on the attack.
The strike comes a day after Hezbollah threatened to intensify its attacks against Israel following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, began attacking Israel in what it said was a show of solidarity with Palestinians after Hamas sparked a war with Israel in Gaza last year. Sinwar was the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel, the deadliest in the country’s more than 75-year history.
While the Hezbollah statement on Friday didn’t mention Sinwar, it shows the Lebanese group is determined to continue fighting despite a series of devastating blows against it by Israel, which has launched thousands of airstrikes in Lebanon and initiated a ground operation in the country’s south late last month.
Israel struck Beirut later Saturday, launching a pair of airstrikes on the capital’s southern suburbs after a week in which it had slowed the pace of attacks, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. The bombing destroyed a building, the news agency said, and produced a loud explosion that could be heard miles away.
The Israeli military issued an order on social media for residents to evacuate two buildings in the Shiite-majority suburbs, which have been largely emptied of people since Israel escalated its bombing campaign in September.
Earlier, an Israeli strike killed two people on the main coastal highway north of the capital, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about any of the three strikes.
The strikes come after the State Department said the U.S. broadly supports the campaign against Hezbollah but opposes Israel’s bombing campaign in Beirut.
As Israel continues to kill high-ranking Hamas and Hezbollah officials, including top leaders, neither of the U.S.-designated terrorist groups have signaled backing down. Hezbollah has said it would stop its strikes when a cease-fire is reached in Gaza, where more than 42,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities. The figures don’t specify how many were combatants.
The Israeli military said that Hezbollah fired some 180 rockets and missiles at Israel on Saturday. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for attacks in the vicinity of Haifa as well as areas near the border, which killed one person, wounded over a dozen and caused some fires to break out.
The latest drone attack is another example of a weakness in Israel’s vaunted aerial defense systems, which have struggled to defend against drones that have been launched by an array of Iranian-backed groups including Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and Iraqi militias.
Earlier this month, a Hezbollah drone struck the dining hall of a military base in central Israel belonging to the Golani infantry brigade while soldiers were eating dinner, killing four soldiers and wounding 61 others, according to Israeli authorities.
An Israeli intelligence official said that drone strikes are picking up after a brief lull following the killing of the head of Hezbollah’s drone unit, Muhammad Hussein Srour, also known as Abu Saleh, in September. Unit 127, as it is known, is composed of a few dozen operatives who were led by their senior commander, and the unit suffered after he was killed, the official said.
“After his elimination we saw a relatively long period where there weren’t launches of UAVs at Israel,” the official said, with UAV attacks only coming back in force recently.
Current and former military officials have said that Israel has struggled to come up with adequate solutions to counter drones being launched by Hezbollah, especially at the detection stage.
Hezbollah’s attack on Israel Saturday shows how the group has improved its use of drones since the start of the war, including using surveillance drones to collected images of sensitive sites, explosive drones and first-person-view drones, or FPVs, which are navigated by an operator.
While drones have played a crucial role in the war in Ukraine, Israel’s military has focused on longstanding threats such as rockets and missiles and has viewed drones as a side issue. Israel’s security establishment as well as private companies are now scrambling to improve defenses against drones, with many resources being put toward this goal.
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