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Israeli PM Netanyahu Defiant After Drone Hits Near Home

No one was injured in the Saturday morning attack, the prime minister’s office said.

A drone launched from Lebanon struck a building near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in northern Israel on Saturday morning, his office said.

The attack, in which no one was injured, did not seem to faze Netanyahu, who wasn’t at the residence at the time. His office posted a video of the prime minister later in the day, in which he said, “Nothing will deter us, we will keep going until victory.”

The Israeli Defense Forces said two other drones were intercepted during the attack near Caesarea, the coastal town where Netanyahu’s home is located. The incident is under review, the military said.

A week earlier, a Hezbollah drone attack killed four soldiers at a military base in northern Israel.

Although Israel has some of the most advanced aerial defense systems in the world, drones—because they emit less heat, contain less metal, and fly more slowly and at lower altitudes than missiles—sometimes evade interception.

On Saturday, Hezbollah took credit for 11 rocket attacks on Israel, but has yet to comment on the drone strike near Netanyahu’s home. The group has been trading blows with Israel for the past year, since the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.

Also on Saturday, health officials in Gaza, the focal point of Israel’s airstrike onslaught against Hamas, reported Israeli strikes had killed more than 30 Palestinians in the past day.

Days before the drone attack on Netanyahu’s home, Israel announced that it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who orchestrated the Oct. 7 attack. He was killed during an exchange of gunfire during a routine military operation in Gaza, and his body was identified later, CNN reported.

“Terrorist mastermind Yahya Sinwar, responsible for the massacre and atrocities of Oct. 7, was eliminated today by IDF soldiers,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday, according to NBC News. “This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel and a victory for the entire free world against the axis of radical Islam led by Iran.”

Despite hopes that Sinwar’s death could lead to peace in a region that has been torn apart by war, fighting has not slowed in the days since his death.

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Liam ArchackiNews Reporter

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