Israeli PM claims agents of Iran tried to assassinate him.  Israeli airstrike on western Beqaa martyrs 4 including mayor.  One Israeli killed, several injured in a series of barrages from Lebanon.  Two more Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza.

JERUSALEM  -  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday those who tried to “assassinate me and my wife today made a bitter mistake” after a drone was launched toward his home in Caesarea in central Israel Saturday.  The Israeli military confirmed earlier that the drone had been launched from Lebanon, and the prime minister’s spokesperson said that the attack had targeted Netanyahu’s home. Neither he nor his wife were at home at the time and nobody else was injured, according to his office.

Netanyahu said the “agents of Iran” — meaning Hezbollah — were behind the attack and would “pay a heavy price.”

Israel said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Saturday, as Hezbollah launched a barrage of projectiles into Israel from its northern neighbour Lebanon. On the southern front, Israel hammered Gaza with air strikes, with an overnight raid on Jabalia in the north killing 33 people, according to the besieged civil defence agency.

Sirens blared across Israel throughout the morning as Hezbollah fired projectiles from various locations in Lebanon. The group said it launched a large salvo of advanced rockets at a military base in Israel’s Haifa region. A man in the northern Israeli port city of Acre died after being struck by shrapnel, the Magen David Adom emergency service said, while shrapnel also wounded five people in the Haifa city of Kiryat Ata.

Late last month Israel ramped up air strikes on Lebanon and deployed ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges.

Also, one Israeli was killed and others injured in a series of barrages from southern Lebanon Saturday, Israeli emergency services say. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a total of 150 launches from southern Lebanon on Saturday had been detected. One person was killed in Acre, northern Israel. Paramedics said the 50-year-old man was hit by shrapnel while sitting in his car.

Meanwhile, a local mayor is among four people killed by an Israeli airstrike in the town of Baaloul in the Beqaa valley of eastern Lebanon, according to the country’s National News Agency (NNA).

The Lebanese health ministry announced the death of four people following an “Israeli enemy raid on Baaloul in the Western Beqaa” on Saturday, without referencing the mayor specifically.

According to the report from NNA, the death toll following the “airstrike on a residential apartment” includes the mayor of the nearby town of Sohmor, Haidar Shahla. Emergency services were working to identify body parts and remains found in the rubble, the health ministry said.

IDF announced late Saturday that two soldiers killed in northern Gaza amid offensive there against Hamas.