The target of the drone attack launched from Lebanon this Saturday morning on Israel was not just any one: the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Iran has tried to assassinate the prime minister of Israel,” an official source accused television channel 12, the most followed by the audience. It is the first time that it is revealed that the head of the Government and main architect of decisions regarding the war It is put in the center of the target by Hezbollah, whose number two, Naim Qasem, announced days before a “new equation” in the fight against Israel. “Nothing will stop us, we will continue until victory,” he responded in video statements. Shortly after, Israeli fighters bombed the suburbs of Beirut for the first time since Wednesday and flew over the capital, breaking the sound barrier.
Several unmanned devices were launched towards the Mediterranean coast and one of them ended up hitting Caesarea, the town about 50 kilometers north of Tel Aviv where Netanyahu has a private residence that has been the scene of protests against him for years. : first, for his accusations of corruptionthen by judicial reform and now in favor of a ceasefire to bring back the hostages in Gaza. Some images show damage to the exterior of a chalet with a swimming pool that unofficial sources indicate is that of the president and which coincide with satellite images of the place.
The prime minister’s office has acknowledged in a statement that the head of the Government’s house has been the target of that attack and that both he and his wife Sarah were not there and there were no injuries.
Two other drones were shot down by anti-aircraft defense while sirens were activated in the area around Tel Aviv. In addition, Hezbollah has launched dozens of missiles against different areas of Israel. Some have hit Shlomi, next to the border, and other towns in the metropolitan belt of Haifa, the country’s third city. A man has died after one of these impacts around the city of Acre.
Israeli attacks on Beirut
The Israeli army has resumed evacuation orders (three in a few hours in Dahiye, the almost deserted Shiite suburb of Beirut) and subsequent bombings. Israeli aviation has continued its attacks in different parts of the country during the day. In the Bekah Valley, an airstrike has killed five people, including the town’s mayor, Shomor; and in the south, where residents of towns such as Kfar Shuba, Kfar Hamam and Shebaa have reported intense artillery fire. The Lebanese killed in a year of clashes exceed 2,400, the vast majority in the last month of the Israeli offensive, with more intense bombings and more civilians among the victims, according to the latest balance from the Ministry of Health. For its part, Hezbollah claims to have set fire to a Merkava tank this afternoon with a missile, causing deaths and injuries. The Israeli military has not confirmed the incident.
Last Sunday, Israel suffered the deadliest drone attack of the entire war. Four soldiers died after the impact of a device on the dining room of a barracks in Binyamina, near Haifa (northwest of the country), at dinner time. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack. Its number two now speaks of a “new equation of inflicting damage on the enemy”, in which “the missiles will reach Haifa and further afield, as desired” by the assassinated leader, Hasan Nasrallah. “We can hit any point in the Zionist entity (Israel) and we will choose the appropriate point,” he said. Previously, on October 4, two other soldiers had died after a drone attack on a base in the Golan, a Syrian area under Israeli occupation.
Two days after the attack in Binyamina, the Government acknowledged that it is trying to adapt its air defense system to this new and growing threat. A testing ground in the south of the country hosted an event on Monday in which leading and emerging companies in the defense sector participated, presenting solutions to the authorities of the Jewish State to try to stop these devices, the Ministry of Defense reported in a statement. . The companies showed the capabilities of the prototypes of their interception systems and the Ministry of Defense must now choose which one or which ones it will keep in an attempt to accelerate the improvement of its anti-aircraft defensive system “in a matter of months.” The drone that killed those four soldiers evaded radar control, prevented the alarms from going off and, finally, hit a critical target.
For his part, the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, He stressed that the drone threat “originates in Iran, which supplies unmanned aerial devices to Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and even launches them itself.” “To confront this threat,” he added, “we must concentrate the national effort of all agencies dealing with the issue to produce operational solutions quickly.”
Gaza offensive
In Gaza, the announcement on Thursday that Israel had managed to kill the Hamas chief Yahia Sinwarhas had no effect on the development of the war on the ground. The occupation troops maintain the high intensity of their attacks both on the ground and from the air. The northern part of the Strip is the one that is suffering the most from the effects of a great offensive that since the beginning of October It focuses mainly on the Yabalia refugee camp.
There, a bombing has caused at least 33 deaths and nearly a hundred injured on the night of Friday to Saturday, according to health authorities of the Hamas Government, who estimate that there are 450 deaths in the last two weeks in the north and more. of 42,500 in the Strip so far in the conflict. On Friday alone, some 20,000 people were forced to flee the Jabalia camp amid constant communications blackouts, lack of food and water and shortages of medical supplies, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
In addition, another airstrike on a house has killed 11 inhabitants of the Al-Maghazi refugee camp; another four in the Nuseirat camp and five more in the Shati camp, according to local health authorities.
The three main hospitals in the north, Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesianare being shaken by the Israeli offensive. On Saturday morning, several tank shells hit the Indonesio causing damage to the second and third floors, according to the center’s management. Shortly after, the authorities announced that, due to a shortage of material and the military siege, two of the patients have died.
