A drone was launched towards the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli city of Caesarea on Saturday, hours after Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed.
Mr Netanyahu’s spokesman said he was not around and there were no casualties in the attack on his residence. “A UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was flown towards the Prime Minister’s residence in Caesarea. The Prime Minister and his wife were not at the location, and no one was injured in the incident,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “
Earlier the Israeli army had said that the drone was launched from Lebanon and it hit a building. Reuters quoted the army as saying that two more drones that had entered Israeli territory were intercepted.
The drone strike was not immediately claimed by Hezbollah, which has been exchanging fire with Israel since last October, or any other terrorist group.
Israel is also waging a war with Hamas’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. There have been rocket attacks between the two sides since the October 7 attack, with Israel sending ground troops to the Lebanese border last month.
The drone attack came a day after the Israeli military said it had destroyed Hezbollah’s regional command center with an airstrike. The war has killed at least 1,418 people in Lebanon since late September, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, although the actual toll is likely higher.
Meanwhile, Lebanese officials said two people were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday in Jounieh, north of Beirut, the first attack on the region since firing between Hezbollah and Israel began last year. The health ministry said an “Israeli enemy attack” hit a car in Jounieh, Lebanese state media said the attack occurred on a major highway linking the capital with the country’s north.
The tripartite conflict in the Middle East is likely to intensify after Sinwar was killed in an Israeli operation in southern Gaza. Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attacks that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and brought more than 250 hostages to Gaza, took over as head of Hamas after the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital Tehran.
