Israel has launched several air attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs after the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired volleys of rockets at northern Israel with one drone targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s holiday home.
Netanyahu’s spokesman said one of three drones launched from Lebanon hit Netanyahu’s residence in the town of Caesarea on Saturday, adding that he was not in the vicinity and there were no casualties.
The two other drones were intercepted, the Israeli military said, adding that more than 100 rockets were fired at northern Israel from Lebanon, killing one person and injuring at least 13.
“The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake,” Netanyahu said.
Iran-aligned Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since October last year. The attacks on Saturday came a day after the group announced a new phase in the fighting.
Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for the Caesarea drone attack but said it carried out several rocket attacks on northern and central Israel.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said the drone attack would raise concerns among Israeli security authorities.
“The fact that a drone was able to go undetected 70km [43 miles] from the Lebanese border – no sirens went off, and it struck the intended target – that has caused a lot of concern in Israel and in the Israeli security establishment.”
She said “a large volley of rockets” from Lebanon were used as decoys to launch the drone attack on Netanyahu’s house. Sirens were activated across northern Israel, including in the cities of Galilee and Haifa, she said.
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel and is seen as a strategic port city that is home to 300,000 people and the country’s naval headquarters.
“The sirens went off just right after we got confirmation that a drone attack actually succeeded in targeting and striking the house of the Israeli prime minister in Caesarea,” Odeh said.
Israeli strikes
Later on Saturday, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health reported that four people were killed and 13 wounded in an Israeli air strike on an apartment building in the eastern town of Baaloul in the Western Bekaa district.
Israeli air strikes also hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanese state media said, marking the first attacks in three days on the area.
Footage from the news agency AFP showed plumes of smoke rising over the area, less than an hour after the Israeli military issued an evacuation order to its residents.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported two Israeli strikes on one building in the neighbourhood of Haret Hreik and later added that Israeli warplanes had struck the al-Umara neighbourhood in nearby Choueifat.
Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets.
On September 23, Israel launched an intense air campaign on Lebanon and later sent in ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire with Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
At least 2,448 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since October 2023, according to Lebanese health authorities.