Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused “Hezbollah, ally of Iran”, to have ” tent “ to assassinate him with his wife, after a drone targeted his private residence in Caesarea, in the center of the country, this Saturday, October 19, 2024, ensuring that they “will pay a high price”.
“Hezbollah, an ally of Iran who attempted to assassinate me and my wife today (Saturday) made a regrettable mistake,” reacted Benyamin Netanyahu in a press release in English. “I say to the Iranians and their partners in the Axis of Evil: anyone who tries to harm the citizens of the State of Israel will pay a high price for it,” he added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, for his part, castigated “Iran’s allies who attempted assassination” Benyamin Netanyahu, an attack that “showed the true face of Iran and the axis of Evil that it leads.”
Iran reacted on Saturday by claiming that Hezbollah was behind the attack. “This action was carried out by the Lebanese Hezbollah,” the Iranian mission to the UN said in a short statement, cited by the official IRNA news agency.
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A death in Acre
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office indicated in the morning that a drone had been launched towards the private residence of Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea, after the army announced that a drone from Lebanon had hit a « structure » from this coastal town in central Israel.
“A drone was launched towards the Prime Minister’s house in Caesarea. The Prime Minister and his wife were not there and the incident caused no casualties,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said in a statement.
Northern Israel was the target of at least 115 projectiles launched from Lebanon on Saturday and alert sirens were activated in several cities, with the Lebanese Islamist movement claiming responsibility for shots on Haifa and Safed (north). A man has died after rocket debris fell on his car near Acre, according to Israeli emergency services.
This salvo of rockets led to two retaliatory strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, the stronghold of Hezbollah, according to a security source atAFP.
The Israeli army claimed to have reached weapons caches and a command center of the Lebanese movement’s intelligence services.
Four people killed in Lebanon
Four people were also killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike on a town in eastern Lebanon, including the mayor of a neighboring village, according to the official Lebanese agency ANI.
Lebanese Hezbollah has been launching rockets and drones into northern Israel for a year in support of Palestinian Hamas, which carried out the unprecedented attack of October 7, 2023 against southern Israel from Gaza.
After a year of border exchanges of fire between the army and the pro-Iranian formation, Israel has been carrying out land operations in the border regions of southern Lebanon since the end of September, supported by a campaign of airstrikes.
Hezbollah announced Thursday that it had entered a “phase of escalation” with Israel, with which it is now at open war.
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