Is­rael’s gov­ern­ment said a drone tar­get­ed Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s house Sat­ur­day, with no ca­su­al­ties, as fight­ing with Lebanon-based Hezbol­lah and Gaza -based Hamas showed no pause af­ter the killing of the mas­ter­mind of last year’s dead­ly Oct. 7 at­tack.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary said dozens of pro­jec­tiles were launched from Lebanon, as sirens wailed. Ne­tanyahu’s of­fice said the drone tar­get­ed his house in the Mediter­ranean coastal town of Cae­sarea, though nei­ther he nor his wife were there.

Is­raeli se­cu­ri­ty forces se­cure a road near where Is­rael’s gov­ern­ment says a drone launched to­ward Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s house in Cae­sarea, Is­rael Sat­ur­day, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Pho­to/Ariel Schalit)

Hezbol­lah did not claim re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the drone at­tack but said it car­ried out sev­er­al rock­et at­tacks on north­ern and cen­tral Is­rael. The bar­rage came as Is­rael is ex­pect­ed to re­spond to an Iran­ian at­tack ear­li­er this month.

Is­rael in turn car­ried out at least three airstrikes on Beirut’s south­ern sub­urbs known as Dahiyeh, a heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed area home to Hezbol­lah’s of­fices. Is­rael’s mil­i­tary said it was look­ing in­to the re­port­ed strikes.

In Gaza, Is­raeli forces fired at hos­pi­tals in the bat­tered north of the Pales­tin­ian en­clave, and strikes killed more than 50 peo­ple, in­clud­ing chil­dren, in less than 24 hours, ac­cord­ing to hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials and an As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porter there.

Re­lat­ed Sto­ries

“The pos­si­bil­i­ty of war in the re­gion re­mains a se­ri­ous con­cern,” Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi said while vis­it­ing Turkey.

Bar­rages from Lebanon tar­get north­ern Is­rael

Is­rael’s war with Lebanon’s Hezbol­lah — a Hamas al­ly backed by Iran — has in­ten­si­fied. Hezbol­lah said Fri­day it planned to launch a new phase of fight­ing by send­ing more guid­ed mis­siles and ex­plod­ing drones in­to Is­rael. The mil­i­tant group’s long­time leader, Has­san Nas­ral­lah, was killed in an Is­raeli airstrike in Sep­tem­ber, and Is­rael sent ground troops in­to Lebanon ear­ly this month.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary on Sat­ur­day said some 180 pro­jec­tiles were fired from Lebanon. A 50-year-old man was killed af­ter be­ing hit by shrap­nel while sit­ting in his car in north­ern Is­rael, and four peo­ple were in­jured, Is­rael’s med­ical ser­vices said.

In the north­ern city of Kiry­at Ata, one rock­et land­ed and As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters saw burned cars and a dam­aged build­ing. Itzik Bil­let, com­man­der for the Haifa area, said nine peo­ple were light­ly in­jured. The Is­raeli fire ser­vice said it was bat­tling sev­er­al blazes from mis­siles in the Shlo­mi area next to the Lebanese bor­der.

Lebanon’s state-run Na­tion­al News Agency said an Is­raeli airstrike on an apart­ment in Baaloul vil­lage in the east killed five peo­ple, in­clud­ing the may­or of a near­by vil­lage, Sohmor. Is­rael’s mil­i­tary said it was look­ing in­to re­ports of a strike on a build­ing in the east­ern Bekaa val­ley.

Lebanon’s health min­istry said an Is­raeli airstrike hit a ve­hi­cle on a high­way north of Beirut, killing two peo­ple.

Is­rael has is­sued near-dai­ly warn­ings for peo­ple to leave build­ings and vil­lages in parts of Lebanon. The fight­ing has dis­placed more than 1 mil­lion peo­ple, in­clud­ing some 400,000 chil­dren.

Is­rael al­so said Sat­ur­day it killed Hezbol­lah’s deputy com­man­der in the south­ern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nass­er Rashid su­per­vised at­tacks against Is­rael.

Is­raeli strikes pound Gaza as Hamas re­jects hostage re­lease

Both Is­rael and Hamas have sig­naled re­sis­tance to end­ing the war in Gaza af­ter the killing of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sin­war, was the chief ar­chi­tect of the Hamas raid on Is­rael a year ago that killed some 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, and kid­napped an­oth­er 250.

On Fri­day, Iran’s supreme leader, Ay­a­tol­lah Ali Khamenei, said Sin­war’s death was a painful loss but de­clared that “Hamas is alive and will stay alive.”

Hamas has re­it­er­at­ed its stance that the hostages tak­en from Is­rael a year ago will not be re­leased un­til there is a cease-fire in Gaza and Is­raeli troops with­draw. Ne­tanyahu says Is­rael’s mil­i­tary will keep fight­ing un­til the hostages are re­leased, and will re­main in Gaza to pre­vent a se­vere­ly weak­ened Hamas from rearm­ing.

Is­rael’s re­tal­ia­to­ry of­fen­sive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health au­thor­i­ties, who do not dis­tin­guish com­bat­ants from civil­ians but say more than half the dead are women and chil­dren.

More strikes pound­ed Gaza on Sat­ur­day. The strikes knocked out in­ter­net net­works in north­ern Gaza, Pal­tel, the Pales­tin­ian com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny, said on Face­book.

The Pales­tin­ian Health Min­istry said Is­raeli strikes hit the up­per floors of the In­done­sian Hos­pi­tal in Beit Lahiya, and forces opened fire at the hos­pi­tal’s build­ing and court­yard, caus­ing pan­ic. At Al-Aw­da hos­pi­tal in Ja­baliya, in north­ern Gaza, strikes hit the build­ing’s top floors, in­jur­ing sev­er­al staff mem­bers, the hos­pi­tal said.

Three hous­es in Ja­baliya were struck overnight Fri­day, killing at least 30 peo­ple, more than half of them women and chil­dren, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health min­istry’s am­bu­lance and emer­gency ser­vice. At least 80 peo­ple were in­jured.

In cen­tral Gaza, at least 10 peo­ple were killed, in­clud­ing two chil­dren, when a house was hit in the town of Za­way­da, ac­cord­ing to the al-Aqsa Mar­tyrs Hos­pi­tal in Deir al-Bal­ah. An­oth­er strike killed 11 peo­ple, all from the same fam­i­ly, in the Mag­hazi refugee camp, the hos­pi­tal said. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists count­ed the bod­ies from both strikes.

A Unit­ed Na­tions school shel­ter­ing dis­placed peo­ple in the west of Gaza City, was al­so hit, killing sev­er­al peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to the Hamas-run civ­il de­fense first re­spon­ders.

The war has de­stroyed vast swaths of Gaza, dis­placed about 90% of its pop­u­la­tion of 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple, and left them strug­gling to find food, wa­ter, med­i­cine and fu­el.

Some see hope af­ter Sin­war’s death

Sin­war’s killing could shift the dy­nam­ics of the war in Gaza, while Is­rael press­es its of­fen­sive against Hezbol­lah with ground troops in south­ern Lebanon and airstrikes in oth­er ar­eas of the coun­try.

Is­rael’s al­lies and ex­haust­ed Gaza res­i­dents ex­pressed hope that Sin­war’s death would pave the way for an end to the fight­ing.

In Is­rael, fam­i­lies of hostages still held in Gaza de­mand­ed the Is­raeli gov­ern­ment use Sin­war’s killing as a way to restart ne­go­ti­a­tions to bring home their loved ones. About 100 hostages re­main in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Is­rael says are dead.

Is­rael has pledged to de­stroy Hamas po­lit­i­cal­ly in Gaza, and killing Sin­war was a top mil­i­tary pri­or­i­ty. But Ne­tanyahu said in an­nounc­ing the killing that “our war is not yet end­ed.”

As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters Jack Jef­fery in Ra­mal­lah, West Bank and Bassem Mroue in Beirut con­tributed to this re­port.

By  ADAM SCHRECK and SAMY MAGDY

JERUSALEM (AP)