New Delhi:
A drone was launched towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in the Israeli city of Caesarea on Saturday, hours after Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was assassinated.
Netanyahu’s spokesman said he was not in the area and that there were no casualties in the attack on his home. “A UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was launched towards the Prime Minister’s residence in Caesarea. The prime minister and his wife were not at the location and no injuries were reported in the incident,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
Earlier, the Israeli military had said the drone was launched from Lebanon and hit a building. Two more drones entering Israeli territory were intercepted, the military was quoted by Reuters as saying.
The drone strike was not immediately claimed by Hezbollah, which has been exchanging fire with Israel since October last year, or any other militant group.
Israel is also at war with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. The two sides had exchanged rocket fire since the October 7 attack, with Israel sending ground troops across the Lebanese border last month.
The drone strike comes a day after the Israeli military said it had destroyed Hezbollah’s regional command center with an airstrike. The war in Lebanon has killed at least 1,418 people since late September, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese Health Ministry figures, although the real toll is likely higher.
Meanwhile, Lebanese authorities said two people were killed on Saturday in an Israeli attack in Jounieh, north of Beirut, the first attack on the area since Hezbollah and Israel began firing at each other last year. The Health Ministry said an “Israeli enemy attack” hit a car in Jounieh, while Lebanese state media said the attack took place on a major highway connecting the capital with the north of the country.
The tripartite conflict in the Middle East is likely to intensify further after Sinwar was killed during an Israeli operation in southern Gaza. Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7 attacks that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took 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.