Israel’s response to a missile attack on Hezbollah: The Gaza crisis in the early stages of the September 11 terrorist attack
There was a warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. The military said dozens of projectiles were launched. The Israeli Prime Minister and his wife were not at home when the drone hit their house in Caesarea.
The barrage comes as Israel considers its expected response to an Iranian attack earlier this month and presses its offensives against Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
At least 87 people are dead or missing after the health ministry said Israeli strikes on multiple homes left them dead or missing.
The missile that was launched towards Ben Gurion Airport in September was from Yemen. The missile was intercepted.
In the northern city of Kir Atayat, people ran for cover as missiles exploded in the sky. One rocket landed in the area, and Associated Press reporters saw burned cars and a damaged building. Nine people were lightly injured according to Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa area.
The Israeli fire service also said it was battling several blazes resulting from missiles in the Shlomi area, less than a mile (1 kilometer) from the Lebanese border.
In the recent weeks Israel has intensified its war with Hezbollah, a group supported by Iran. Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The group’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon in October.
Israel ordered the entire population of the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, to evacuate to the south in the opening weeks of the war and reiterated those instructions earlier this month. Most of the population left last year but hundreds of thousands remain in the north.
Israeli-Israel Relations after the September Israel-Israel Retaliatory Attack on Gaza, and a United Nations School in Bint Jbeil
Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said that they had a man who was responsible for attacks against Israel.
In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli airstrike Saturday hit a vehicle on a main highway north of Beirut, killing two people. Who was in the car when it was hit was not known.
The U.S. is urging Israel to press for a cease-fire in Gaza following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week. After months of talks, Hamas and Israel did not show renewed interest in such a deal.
The death of Sinwar, the leader of the militant group Hamas, was mourned by Iran’s supreme leader, but he said that the group continued with its killings of other Palestinian leaders.
The architect of the Gaza raid on Israel was Sinwar, who killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250. 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.
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.
Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the fighting.
Gaza is devastated by attacks on Hamas in the first target of Israel’s ground invasion: a medical organization and a humanitarian organization
It said 60 people were wounded, 40 of whom were seriously, in the first strikes on the town of the first targets of Israel’s ground invasion a year ago.
The documents that were attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency are top secret and indicate that Israel was planning a military strike in response to the Iranian missile attack.
Austin has urged Israel to scale back its strikes on Lebanon, where he says too many civilians have been killed in the war.
A family with two parents and four children were among the dead from the strikes in Beit Lahiya, according to a medic. He said that the strike demolished a multi-story building and several nearby houses.
The director general of the Health Ministry said in a post on X that the health care system in northern Gaza has been destroyed by the strikes.
Doctors Without Borders, the international charity known by its French acronym MSF, called on Israeli forces “to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in North Gaza” after the Health Ministry said Israeli troops had fired on two hospitals over the weekend.
“The ever-worsening escalation of violence and non-stop Israeli military operations that we have been witnessing over the past two weeks in northern Gaza have horrifying consequences,” said Anna Halford, an emergency coordinator for MSF.
Internet connectivity went down in northern Gaza late Saturday and had not yet been restored by midday Sunday, making it difficult to gather information about the strikes and complicating rescue efforts.
In northern Gaza, Israel has been carrying out a major operation for the last two weeks. The military says it launched the operation against Hamas militants who had regrouped there.
Israeli forces have frequently returned to the refugee camp of Jabaliya over the course of the war.
The north has already been devastated by the war, and is being encircled by Israeli forces.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Approximately 100 captives are still being held in Gaza, and around a third are thought to be dead.