Hezbollah drone targets PM’s Caesarea home; he says ‘agents of Iran tried to assassinate me’
No one hurt, but unconfirmed reports claim house was hit, though no sirens sounded; Netanyahu says those behind attack ‘made a bitter mistake’
The Times of Israel
Oct 19, 2024
Aerial view of residences in the city of Caesarea
A drone fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon that exploded in the central seaside town of Caesarea early on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private home, his office said.
The premier and his wife were not present and no injuries were reported.
The short statement from Netanyahu’s office came after the IDF said that “a building had been hit” in the upscale town famous for its swanky villas and Roman ruins and amphitheater.
It was not immediately clear if the prime minister’s home suffered any damage.
On Saturday evening Netanyahu said in a statement: “The agents of Iran who tried to assassinate me and my wife today made a bitter mistake.” He said the attack would not deter him from continuing the war, and that anyone who harms Israelis will pay “a heavy price.”
“We will continue to eliminate your terrorists, we will return our hostages from Gaza, we will return our residents in the north,” he promised.
An Axios report said that the drone hit the prime minister’s house. “This is the first time since the beginning of the war that a target affiliated directly with Netanyahu has been hit,” it reported, without elaboration.
The IDF said the drone was one of three launched from Lebanon, and that the other two were shot down.
The military said it was investigating the incident that apparently saw several failures of Israel’s warning system.
No warning sirens were sounded in Caesarea ahead of the drone impact and explosion.
Footage posted to social media appeared to show attack helicopters in the air that were apparently hunting the drone further to the north.
However, sirens did sound in Glilot north of Tel Aviv, which houses a major IDF intelligence base and the Mossad headquarters. Those sirens were not accompanied by warnings on the Home Front Command’s app or other platforms.
The drones and the interceptions also triggered warning sirens down Israel’s coast in the minutes ahead of the impact.
“We heard helicopters above us and there was a feeling that there was some sort of incident but there were no sirens so we were not too worried,” one Caesarea resident told Channel 12. “But then suddenly a large explosion was heard and it was not clear to us if it was from an interception or a drone impact — but it was clear that it was a real incident with no prior warning.”
“It was very worrying; luckily, there are no casualties,” he said.
Ofek Mor, another resident, told Ynet of hearing the drone overhead.
“Suddenly we heard a buzzing sound, it was not clear what was happening, then there was a huge explosion, very strong,” he said. “It is walking distance from my house, we got here and very quickly we understood what had happened.”
Nothing will deter us
In a pair of videos posted in Hebrew and English to social media after his home in Caesarea was targeted, Netanyahu insisted that “nothing will deter” him, and that Israel is “going to win this war.”
The rare video statements, released on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, did not directly mention the drone attack.
Filmed while walking through a sunny park, wearing sunglasses and a black polo shirt, Netanyahu said in Hebrew, “You know, two days ago we eliminated the mass murder [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar, as I’ve said, we’re in an existential war, and we’re continuing to the end.”
“And I want to say something else, I’m proud of our soldiers, I’m proud of our commanders, and I’m proud of you, the citizens of Israel,” he added.
In the English version, Netanyahu called Sinwar “the terrorist mastermind whose goons beheaded our men, raped our women and burned babies alive.”
“We took him out,” the prime minister says, “and we’re continuing our battle with Iran’s other terrorist proxies.”
Rockets at the north
In addition to the drone attacks, Hezbollah also fired rockets at towns and cities across northern Israel overnight Friday and on Saturday morning.
A barrage of some 20 rockets was fired at the Safed area. According to the IDF, some of the rockets were intercepted and the rest struck open areas, causing no injuries.
One rocket was fired at the Haifa area. It exploded in an open area.
Rockets were also fired at the Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee area. There were no reports of injuries.
In addition, the IDF said that a drone launched “from the east” impacted in the Golan Heights, after sirens sounded in several Israeli communities in the area.
According to an IDF statement, the drone entered Israeli territory from Syria. The statement doesn’t specify where the drone was fired from, though the military has frequently referred to attacks launched from Iraq as hailing “from the east.”
The attack on Netanyahu’s home, the most high-profile target targeted by the terror group since the start of the fighting, came a day after it said it was entering a new phase in its fight against Israeli troops, adding that it had introduced new weapons over the past few days. A statement from the group’s operations room said Hezbollah’s fighters had used new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones for the first time.
It said its fighters were working according to “plans prepared in advance” to battle invading Israeli troops in several parts of south Lebanon.
The strikes come despite the terror group taking very heavy losses, with much of its top leadership killed in recent weeks.
Israel continued strikes on Saturday.
Lebanese authorities said two people were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday in Jounieh, north of Beirut, in the first strike on the area since Hezbollah and Israel started trading fire last year.
The health ministry said an “Israeli enemy raid” hit a car in Jounieh, with Lebanese state media saying the attack occurred on a key highway linking the capital to the country’s north.
There was no immediate IDF comment on that strike, but the military said that jets on Friday carried out a strike killing the deputy Hezbollah commander in the Bint Jbeil area.
In addition, the IDF said ground forces operating in southern Lebanon had found and destroyed large caches of Hezbollah weapons and anti-tank weapons primed to be launched at communities in northern Israel.
It also said that aircraft had attacked and destroyed several launchers that had been used during the past day.
Hezbollah began attacking northern Israel a day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on the country’s south, saying it was doing so in support of the Gaza-based terror group. But after suffering nearly a year of cross-border attacks, Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in September with catastrophic consequences for the group, decimating its leadership and crippling much of its capabilities.
This month it launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon to dismantle terror infrastructure that threatened communities near the border.
Israel’s military chief said Friday that at least 1,500 Hezbollah operatives are believed to have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict there, while adding that the numbers could be higher.
“We have taken out their entire command layer,” IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi told commanders of the Golani Brigade, referring to airstrikes that killed terror leader Hassan Nasrallah and many other top leaders. “And you are taking out the local command structure.”
Hezbollah “continues to shrink and shrink,” he said.
“We are very determined to hit Hezbollah as hard as possible,” Halevi said during a visit to troops in southern Lebanon.
“Hezbollah is hiding casualties, hiding dead commanders. We estimate that we have killed some 1,500 Hezbollah operatives, and our estimates are conservative. I imagine there are more that we don’t know about from dozens of strikes.”
Halevi said Hezbollah forces continue to surrender. “It says a lot about their morale and the level of fighting.”
He also asserted that the terror group’s Iranian backers “don’t understand what is happening here to Hezbollah. And [Hezbollah] are their main arm that they have been counting on, and that is very important.”
At the same time, the military said it was sending another reserve brigade to join forces in southern Lebanon.
Also Friday the army said four soldiers had been seriously hurt in fighting in Lebanon the previous day, three of them as a result of friendly fire. The three, from the elite Maglan unit, were mistakenly hit by a shell fired by an Israeli tank. The IDF said it was investigating the incident.
Another officer, a reservist, was wounded in fighting on the border, the IDF said.
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