A drone launched by the Hezbollah militia from Lebanon that reportedly crashed into a building in the Israeli coastal town of Caesarea was targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a government spokesman told dpa on Saturday.
Netanyahu and his wife, who own a home in Caesarea, were not at their residence at the time of the attack, the spokesman said, without providing further details on the exact location of the strike.
It comes after the Israeli military reported earlier that a drone had damaged a building in Caesarea, some 50 kilometres north of Tel Aviv.
No one was injured in the incident, the army said. Two other unmanned flying objects were intercepted.
The house in Caesarea is one of Netanyahu's private residences. His official residence is in Jerusalem.
There was also an air alert in Tel Aviv as a drone reportedly approached the Glilot district, where the headquarters of Israel's foreign intelligence service Mossad and another intelligence centre are located.
Hezbollah, which is allied with the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has been attacking northern Israel almost daily since the start of the Gaza war in October last year.
Following the news of the death of Hamas leader Yehya al-Sinwar, the Iranian-backed militia announced a "new phase of escalation."
Iran not giving in, supreme leader says
Iran, too, vowed to continue the fight against its arch-enemy, two days after Israel announced its forces had killed al-Sinwar in southern Gaza following a year-long manhunt.
Al-Sinwar's death was "painful, but the Axis of Resistance [against Israel] will live on and continue the fight," Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying on his official website on Saturday.
Al-Sinwar was a colourful personality of the resistance, "who has now ascended to the heaven of martyrs," Khamenei said.
The slain Hamas leader is considered the mastermind behind the massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, which left around 1,200 people dead and triggered the current Gaza war.
After his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh and the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, al-Sinwar was the third Islamist leader to be killed in just a few months.
Experts see the killings as a bitter setback for Iran, which is closely allied with both Islamist groups.
Tehran backs both the Palestinian Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as the Houthi rebels in Yemen and proxy forces in Iraq and Syria, having build up what it calls its "Axis of Resistance" against Israel over the years.
Amid Israel's campaign to destroy Hamas both as a military force and political organization, more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the health authorities in Gaza.
Fighting continues in Lebanon and Gaza
Despite several world leaders expressing hope that the killing of al-Sinwar could be used as an opportunity to pressure Israel and Hamas to finally end the devastating conflict in Gaza, fighting has continued both in the Palestinian territory and Lebanon since his death.
The Israeli army said on Saturday that it killed Nasser Abed al-Aziz, Hezbollah's deputy commander in the Bint Jbeil area near the shared border, according to a statement.
Ground troops supported by the air force also killed numerous fighters and unearthed weapons depots of the Iranian-backed militia, it added.
The information could not immediately be independently verified.
Israeli ground troops killed several "terrorists" in the southern city of Rafah and in Jabalia in northern Gaza, the military said.
In northern Gaza, at least 30 people were killed, including children, in an Israeli airstrike, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.
More than 50 others were wounded in the attack on the city of Jabalia, WAFA reported.
Israel targets Christian-majority area north of Beirut
In Lebanon, two people were killed in an Israeli attack north of the Lebanese capital Beirut, according to the authorities.
The attack in the mainly Christian area around Jounieh was aimed at a vehicle, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Panic broke out among residents, with eyewitnesses saying that they had previously thought they were safe from Israeli attacks.
This is the first time that Jounieh has been hit since the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah more than a year ago. The Israeli military did not initially comment on the attack.
The Lebanese Health Ministry also reported an attack in the village of Zefta in the south of the country which killed three people and injured one.
According to the Lebanese state news agency NNA, there were also attacks overnight and in the early morning in the area around the coastal town of Sidon and the city of Nabatiyeh in the south, and in Bint Jbeil not far from the Israeli border.
One killed in Israel
In Israel, a 50-year-old was killed when his car was hit by falling shrapnel amid a rocket and drone attack launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon, the Magen David Adom rescue service said on X.
Another nine people were injured, Israeli media reported, as Hezbollah fired some 115 projectiles in the course of the morning, according to the army.
Most of them were intercepted or went down in open areas, but some reportedly hit residential areas including Kiryat Ata east of Haifa.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attacks.
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