JERUSALEM — Israel’s government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house Saturday, with no casualties, as fighting with militants in Lebanon and Gaza showed no pause after the of last year’s Oct. 7 attack.
‘s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife was there. It wasn’t clear if the house was hit.
“The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake,†Netanyahu said.
Hezbollah militants didn’t claim responsibility but said they carried out rocket attacks on Israel. The barrage came as Israel is expected to respond to an , which backs Hezbollah and Hamas.
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Israel in turn carried out at least 10 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area home to Hezbollah’s offices, Lebanese authorities said. Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets.
The U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called civilian casualties in Lebanon “far too high†in the intensifying and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in and around Beirut.
In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at hospitals in the Palestinian enclave’s battered north, and strikes killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.
“The possibility of war in the region remains a serious concern,†Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said while visiting Turkey. Group of Seven defense ministers warned against escalation and “all-out war.â€
Israel’s military said about 200 projectiles were fired from Lebanon a day after Hezbollah said it planned to send more guided missiles and exploding drones. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was in September, and Israel sent troops into Lebanon this month.
A 50-year-old man was hit by shrapnel and killed in northern Israel, and four other people were wounded, Israel’s medical services said.
Lebanon’s state-run National ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Agency said an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in eastern Baaloul village killed five people. An Israeli military official confirmed the strikes in the Bekaa Valley.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle on a highway north of Beirut, killing two people.
Israel also said it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel.
The fighting in Lebanon displaced more than 1 million people, including about 400,000 children.
In southern Gaza, Israel’s military dropped leaflets Saturday showing dead. “Sinwar destroyed your lives,†it said. “Whoever lays down his weapons and returns the kidnapped people to us, we will allow him to leave and live in peace.â€
Sinwar was the chief architect of the raid on Israel more than a year ago that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250, triggering the war. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
signaled resistance to ending the war after Sinwar’s killing. Hamas militants reiterated that the hostages won’t be released until there is a cease-fire and Israeli troops withdraw. Netanyahu says Israel’s military will fight until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Israel’s retaliatory killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities there, who don’t distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children.
More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday, and Palestinian communications company Paltel said they knocked out internet networks in the north.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli strikes hit the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and forces opened fire at it, causing panic. The U.N. said two patients died due to a power outage and lack of supplies in recent days.
Israel’s military said “there was no intentional fire directed at it.â€
The military also said it was looking into the matter after Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, said strikes hit the top floors, wounding several staff members. It later said the military hit its ambulances and courtyard, wounding four people, including a medic.
Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight, killing at least 30 people, more than half women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least 80 were wounded.
Palestinian residents said Israel’s military was forcing hundreds of displaced people to leave Jabaliya and head to Gaza City. Israel’s military described it as an evacuation and said it detained militants for questioning.
A U.N. school sheltering displaced people west of Gaza City was hit, killing several people, Hamas-run civil defense first responders said.
Elsewhere in central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Another strike killed 11 people from the same family in the Maghazi refugee camp, the hospital said.
The war and displaced about 90% of its 2.3 million residents, leaving them struggling to meet basic needs.