By Maayan Lubell, Maya Gebeily and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israel struck what it said were Hezbollah arms facilities in southern Beirut on Saturday after the Lebanese armed group fired rockets into northern Israel and a spokesman said a drone was launched at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday home.
Netanyahu was not there at the time, his spokesman said, and it was not immediately clear if the building was hit. But the prime minister said what he called an attempt to assassinate him and his wife was a “grave mistake”.
The strikes came as health officials in Gaza, where Israel has been trying to root out Palestinian militant group Hamas for more than a year, said Israeli bombardments had killed at least 35 people and a siege around three hospitals had tightened.
Promises by Israel and its enemies Hamas and Hezbollah to keep fighting have chilled hopes that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Wednesday might lead to truces in Gaza and Lebanon and prevent further escalation in the Middle East.
Officials, diplomats and other sources say that with U.S. elections approaching, Israel is seeking to use intensified military operations to try to shield its borders and ensure its rivals cannot regroup.
On Saturday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over southern Gaza with a picture of Sinwar and the message: “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza”.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, Israel carried out heavy strikes on several locations, leaving thick plumes of smoke hanging over the city into the evening.
The strikes targeted “a number of Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and a Hezbollah intelligence headquarters command centre”, Israel’s military said.
Israel had issued evacuation orders for four separate neighbourhoods within the suburbs, urging residents to get 500 metres (yards) away, but carried out strikes in other areas as well, witnesses said.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the southern suburbs – once a densely populated zone that also housed Hezbollah offices and underground installations – since Israel began regular strikes there about three weeks ago.
An Israeli air attack on Sept. 27 killed Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, and strikes nearby have killed other top figures from the Iran-backed group.
The United States would like to see Israel scale back some of its strikes in and around Beirut, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
NEW AREA STRUCK
Earlier on Saturday an Israeli strike killed two people as they were travelling on Lebanon’s main highway near the Christian-majority town of Jounieh – the first such attack on the area. A spokesperson for Israel’s military said it was looking into the incident.
Witnesses described passengers running from a car after a blast, then seeing the charred remains of one passenger after a second blast.
Another strike killed at least four people in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, health authorities said. One of them was the mayor of a nearby town, making him the second mayor of a Lebanese town to be killed this week.
Hezbollah by Saturday evening had claimed at least 20 attacks on Israeli military targets that day, all of them with salvos of rockets. There was no immediate comment from it on any drone attacks or attacks targeting Netanyahu’s house in the northern Israeli town of Caesarea.
Some of the rockets fired from Lebanon were intercepted, Israeli police said. But one person was killed and at least nine people were injured during the in different locations, the Israeli ambulance service said. Air raid sirens sent people running to shelters.
The conflict over the past year has caused direct Iranian-Israeli confrontations, including missile attacks on Israel in April and on Oct. 1.
Netanyahu has vowed to respond to the October attack.
STALLED TALKS
Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since the war between Israel and Hamas began in Gaza last October.
Nearly three weeks ago, Israel launched a ground assault inside Lebanon in an attempt to stabilise the border region for its citizens who had fled the fighting.
Israel’s military said on Saturday said it had destroyed tunnel shafts and underground infrastructure in southern Lebanon. It also said it had killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander of the Bint Jbeil area on Friday.
Since October 2023 more than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them in the last month, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, while 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, according to Israeli authorities.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took 250 hostage in the attack that triggered the war, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s military response has left more than 42,500 people dead, Palestinian officials say.
The Israeli offensive has made most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people homeless, maimed tens of thousands, caused widespread hunger and destroyed hospitals and schools.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that oversees administration in the Palestinian Territories, has stepped up deliveries of aid into Gaza amid international pressure. Israel and the United Arab Emirates made an air drop of aid into southern Gaza on Saturday, though aid reaching Gaza remains a fraction of what is needed.
Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have said Sinwar’s death offered a chance for a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages.
Negotiations for such a deal have been stalled for weeks. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has led diplomatic efforts, is expected to travel to Israel on Tuesday as part of a regional tour, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on social media platform X.
Biden said on Friday that there was a possibility of working towards a ceasefire in Lebanon but it would be harder in Gaza.
