Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu’s house targeted by drone; Israel drops leaflets over Gaza showing Sinwar’s body
Spokesperson says Israeli prime minister was not in the vicinity during the attack
Israel drops leaflets over Gaza showing Sinwar's body and message to Hamas
"Israeli planes dropped leaflets over southern Gaza on Saturday showing a picture of the dead Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar with the message that “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza”, echoing language used by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports Reuters.
The move came as Israeli military strikes killed at least 32 people across the Gaza Strip and tightened a siege around hospitals in Jabalia in the north of the territory, Palestinian health officials said.
“Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace,” the leaflet, written in Arabic, read, according to residents of the southern city of Khan Younis and images circulating online, reports Reuters.
The leaflet’s wording was from a statement by Netanyahu on Thursday after Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers operating in Rafah, in the south near the Egyptian border, on Wednesday.
Summary of the day so far
It is approaching 6pm in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut. We will be handing this blog over to our US colleagues shortly.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
Israeli planes dropped leaflets over southern Gaza on Saturday showing a picture of the dead Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar with the message that “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza”, echoing language used by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace,” the leaflet, written in Arabic, read, according to residents of the southern city of Khan Younis and images circulating online.
Residents and medics said Israeli forces had tightened their siege on Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historical refugee camps, which it encircled by also sending tanks to nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and issuing evacuation orders to residents. Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied that there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas, but residents and medical officials said Israeli forces were bombing houses and besieging hospitals, preventing medical and food supplies from entering to force them to leave the camp.
After reports of a drone being launched towards Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the northern Israel town of Caesarea earlier on Saturday, Israeli media published a video of Netanyahu walking in a park. Earlier Netanyahu’s spokesperson said the prime minister was not in the vicinity and there were no casualties. “Nothing will deter us, we will keep going until victory,” he said in the video filmed by one of his aides.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Saturday that more than 400 Palestinians were killed in the north of the territory over the past two weeks during an ongoing military assault Israel says is aimed at preventing Hamas militants from regrouping. “We have recovered more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and its camp, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, since the start of the military operation by the occupation army” on 6 October, Gaza civil defence agency spokesperson, Mahmud Bassal, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Israeli airstrikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut on Saturday, Lebanese state media said, shortly after Israel ordered residents to evacuate, marking the first attacks in three days on Hezbollah’s main stronghold.
Israeli emergency services said a man was killed by shrapnel near the port city of Acre on Saturday after a barrage of rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel. “Paramedics have pronounced the death of a man, around 50 years old, who was struck by shrapnel while sitting in his vehicle,” the Magen David Adom emergency service said in a statement.
At least nine people were injured in northern Israel amid a Hezbollah attack on the Haifa area and western Galilee this morning, reported the Times of Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said 55 rockets had been fired in the attack, including 20 at the Haifa area.
Lebanese authorities said two people were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday in Jounieh, north of Beirut, in the first strike on the area since Hezbollah and Israel started trading fire last year. The health ministry said an “Israeli enemy raid” hit a car in Jounieh, with Lebanese state media saying the attack occurred on a key highway linking the capital to the country’s north.
Earlier, Hezbollah said it had fired rockets on Saturday towards Haifa in response to Israeli attacks on its strongholds in southern Lebanon. “The large rocket salvo” came in retaliation for Israeli attacks on south Lebanon villages, said Hezbollah.
Lebanon state media said four people including a mayor were killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike on a town in the eastern Bekaa valley region. The strike hit a residential building in the town of Baaloul, killing four, the official National News Agency said, adding that the dead include Haidar Shahla, the mayor of the nearby town of Sohmor.
Israel’s attacks in Lebanon and Gaza are pushing Iran to take “legitimate steps”, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Saturday, in an apparent show of support for Tehran’s 1 October missile attack on Israel. “Israel’s aggressive stance is forcing Iran to take legitimate steps,” Hakan Fidan said at a joint press conference in Istanbul with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.
European Commission vice-president Josep Borrell said on Saturday the killing of Sinwar opened a “new perspective” for a ceasefire in Gaza. “Certainly after the killing of Yahya Sinwar a new perspective is open and we have to use it in order to reach a ceasefire, to release the remaining hostages and to look for a political perspective,” Borrell told journalists on the sidelines of a G7 defence summit. Borrell also suggested the UN peacekeepers’ mandate should be beefed up by the UN security council to give them more scope to act amid repeated attacks on their positions they say are being conducted by Israeli forces.
More than £11m has been raised in two days after a UK appeal to help those affected by conflict in the Middle East. King Charles, Queen Camilla, and the Prince and Princess of Wales are among those who have donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC)‘s appeal, launched on Thursday.
Two patients in intensive care at the Indonesian hospital had died “as a result of the hospital’s siege and the power outage and medical supplies”, said the Gaza health ministry. “The Israeli occupation is intensifying its targeting of the health system in the northern Gaza Strip, by besieging and directly targeting the Indonesian hospital, Kamal Adwan hospital, and Al-Awda hospital during the past hours and its insistence on putting them out of service,” the Gaza health ministry said. Israel’s military said the troops operating in the area had been “briefed on the importance of mitigating harm to civilians and medical infrastructure”.
At the Awda hospital in Jabaliya, strikes hit the building’s top floors, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement.
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 hospitalwhere the casualties were taken. An Associated Press (AP) reporter counted the bodies at the hospital.
Another strike killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the al Maghazi refugee camp, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, where they were taken. An AP journalist also counted the bodies at this hospital.
At least 42,519 Palestinians have been killed and 99,637 others injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October 2023, Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday. Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Supporters of pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq ransacked offices affiliated with a Saudi TV channel in Baghdad early on Saturday, two security sources said, after the broadcaster aired a report referring to commanders of Tehran-backed militant groups as “terrorists”. After midnight, between 400 and 500 people attacked the studios of a production company in Baghdad that works for the Saudi broadcaster MBC.
An adviser to al-Qaida’s likely current leader is calling for Hamas to release its Israeli hostages held in Gaza, according to an US jihadist monitoring organisation, Site. Attention given to recovering the Israeli hostages, both dead and alive, was overshadowing the fate of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, Mustafa Hamid, also known as Abu Walid al-Masri, who is father-in-law to Saif al-Adel, the man widely believed to now head al-Qaida, said in an online declaration."
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