Hezbollah drone strike in central Israel wounds more than 60 people

A drone strike hit central Israel on Sunday, wounding more than 60 people, some of them critically, rescue services said, in one of the bloodiest attacks in Israel in a year of war.

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group claimed responsibility, saying it targeted a military camp.

Hezbollah said the strike was retaliation for two Israeli strikes in Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people.

Israel’s advanced air defence systems mean that it is rare for so many people to be hurt by drones or missiles. Israeli media reported that two drones were launched from Lebanon, and Israel’s military said one was intercepted.

It was not immediately clear whether military members were hurt or what was hit in the city of Binyamina. There were no details from Israel’s military, which earlier reported that at least 115 rockets were fired from Lebanon.

It was the second time in two days that a drone has struck in Israel. On Saturday, during the Israeli holiday of Yom Kippur, a drone struck in a suburb of Tel Aviv, causing damage but no injuries.

The strike came on the same day that the United States announced it would send a new air-defence system to Israel to help bolster its protection against missiles.

Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both Iran-backed militant groups — and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when. Iran has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.

A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza nearly every day. One strike in Gaza late on Saturday hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing parents and their six children, who ranged in age from eight to 23, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.

“They were safe, while he was sleeping, and he and all his children died,” said the man’s brother, Mohammad Abu Ghali.

The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas.

In recent months, it has repeatedly struck schools being used as shelters by displaced people, accusing militants of hiding among them.

Israel is waging air and ground campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when.

Iran supports both militant groups and has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.

In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp and other areas.

Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the opening weeks of the war.

The Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there. The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since October 1.

The military confirmed on Saturday that hospitals were included in the evacuation orders but said it had not set a specific timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate the transfer of patients.

Dr Mohamed Salha, director of the Awda hospital, said it was among three hospitals in the north, including Kamal Adwan, that had received small shipments of fuel that would only last for a matter of days. He said they also need medicine and medical supplies.

He said casualties are still streaming in and his hospital alone is doing 12 to 15 operations a day.

Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said there are a “large number of martyrs” still uncollected from the streets and under the rubble.

“We are unable to reach them,” he said.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250.

Around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasions of Gaza have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins.

Palestinian medical officials do not say whether those killed by Israeli forces are militants or civilians, but say women and children make up more than half the fatalities. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

In Lebanon, Israeli air strikes destroyed an Ottoman-era market in the southern city of Nabatiyeh overnight, killing at least one person and wounding four more.

Lebanon’s Civil Defence said it battled fires in 12 residential buildings and 40 shops in the market, which dates back to 1910.

“Our livelihoods have all been levelled to the ground,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose shop was destroyed.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets in the city, without elaborating.

Rescuers were searching for survivors and remains in the buildings early Sunday as Israeli drones buzzed overhead.

Nabatiyeh was one of dozens of communities across southern Lebanon that Israel has warned people to evacuate, even as the city hosts people who have already fled.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas, began firing rockets into Israel on October 8 2023, drawing retaliatory air strikes.

The conflict dramatically escalated in September with a wave of Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation into southern Lebanon earlier this month.

In a separate incident, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in the wreckage of a house destroyed by an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon on Sunday when a second strike left four paramedics with concussion and damaged two ambulances.

It said the rescue operation had been co-ordinated with UN peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side.

Israeli forces have repeatedly fired upon first responders and UN peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation. The military has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to ferry fighters and weapons and says Hezbollah operates in the vicinity of the peacekeepers, without providing evidence.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for the peacekeepers to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah after Israeli strikes wounded five peacekeepers in recent days.

“We regret the injury to the Unifil soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video addressed to the UN secretary-general, who has been banned from entering Israel.

Israel has long accused the United Nations of being biased against it and relations have plunged further since the start of the war in Gaza. It has accused the UN agency for Palestinian refugees of having been infiltrated by Hamas, allegations the agency denies.

At least 2,255 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,400 people since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters.

At least 54 people have been killed in the rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.

Iran, which supports Hezbollah and Hamas, launched around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel to avenge the killing of Nasrallah; an Iranian general who was with him; and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, who died in an explosion in Iran’s capital in July that was widely blamed on Israel.