Fighting Rages in Gaza and Lebanon, Despite Killing of Hamas Leader

Peace talks were nowhere in sight and, despite Yahya Sinwar’s death, the violence seemed only to increase, as Israel struck northern Gaza and Hezbollah fired dozens of projectiles.

Israeli forces pounded targets in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya on Saturday, killing at least 33 people and injuring dozens of others in the bombardment, a Palestinian emergency services group said.

Israel has surrounded Jabaliya for a week as it seeks to root out Hamas fighters who it says have reorganized in the area. Since Friday, approximately 20,000 Palestinians have fled the neighborhood, according to UNRWA, the main United Nations agency aiding Palestinians in Gaza, amid Israel’s bombardment. Paltel, the largest telecommunications provider in Gaza, said that internet service was completely down in northern Gaza.

Fighting also escalated in Lebanon on Saturday, as the Israeli military targeted several areas outside of Beirut in airstrikes that covered the area in clouds of dust. The resurgence in attacks, after several days of relative calm, came after Hezbollah warned of “a new and escalating phase” in the conflict with Israel.

In Gaza, the Gazan Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces had targeted the entrance of the laboratory at Kamal Adwan Hospital, a major facility near Jabaliya, killing one person and injuring several others. The ministry has warned of a crisis in Gaza’s hospitals, citing fuel shortages and a lack of essential medicines and medical supplies.

There were also reports of an Israeli airstrike hitting a residential building in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, with Hamas officials saying dozens of people had been killed. Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, also said dozens of people were wounded and missing, according to Reuters.

The Israeli military said it was examining what had happened. It also said that it disputed the death toll released by Hamas officials, saying it “did not align” with the military’s initial assessment.

Israeli forces were also operating near the Indonesian Hospital, a medical center that was financed by charities from Indonesia and lies on Jabaliya’s northern outskirts. Israeli troops fired gunshots and artillery in the direction of the hospital, the Health Ministry said, adding that more than 40 patients remained at the facility.

Without directly responding to the ministry’s claim, the Israeli military said there had been no “intentional fire” at the hospital.

The fighting has raged on in Gaza and Lebanon in the days since Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops in southern Gaza. Despite hopes that Mr. Sinwar’s death could be a pivot to negotiations that would end the year-old war, there were no indications that peace talks were imminent, and over the weekend the violence appeared only to intensify.

U.S. officials have signaled that they will try to renew long-deadlocked talks on a deal to stop the fighting, in exchange for the release of the dozens of remaining hostages in Gaza. But Mr. Sinwar’s longtime deputy said on Friday that the group would not soften its demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza before a cease-fire, and Israel has shown no signs of backing off.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the killing of Mr. Sinwar, whom he described as a “terrorist mastermind.” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered a message of condolence to Mr. Sinwar’s supporters and said that Iran, a longtime backer of the militant group, would continue to provide support.

“Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” he said in a social media post.

The fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah also escalated over the weekend, with a drone fired on Saturday from the militant group’s base in Lebanon, striking a building near Mr. Netanyahu’s private residence, his office said.

Neither Mr. Netanyahu nor his wife were home at the time of the strike, according to the prime minister’s office, which said that there had been no injuries.

That drone was just one of about 180 projectiles launched from Lebanon into Israel overnight and into the day on Saturday, the Israeli military said. Most were intercepted or allowed to fall into unpopulated areas, but one barrage fired toward the cities of Haifa and Acre killed one man and wounded another, emergency workers said. Last week, a Hezbollah drone attack killed four people and wounded dozens of others at a military base in northern Israel.

Those incidents, along with the drone strike near the prime minister’s residence, highlighted the continuing challenge posed to Israel’s vaunted air defenses by unmanned vehicles. While highly effective against rockets, missiles and some drones, the defensive systems sometimes have trouble detecting slow-moving drones that fly at low altitudes and emit little heat.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said that the Israeli bombing near Beirut was especially heavy because of the drone attack on Mr. Netanyahu’s house, despite American pleadings to rein in attacks around Beirut because of the risk to civilian casualties.

In Lebanon, two people were killed on Saturday in an Israeli drone strike that appeared to target an S.U.V. traveling along a busy highway north of Beirut, according to Lebanon’s civil defense, an emergency service. The vehicle was hit near the coastal town of Jounieh, the civil defense agency said in a statement.

The Biden administration is increasingly concerned about the conflicts spreading across the region.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin said on Saturday that civilian casualties in Lebanon have been “far too high” and that he’d “like to see Israel scale back some of the strikes especially in or near Beirut.” Speaking after a meeting of security officials from the Group of 7 nations in Naples, Mr. Austin also blamed Hezbollah for hiding weapons and fighters among the civilian population.

The Israeli military has been trying to demonstrate that it is taking measures to protect civilians and on Saturday it issued an urgent evacuation warning for residents of Haret Hreik, a densely populated enclave south of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway. In a social media post in Arabic, a military spokesman posted a satellite image of two buildings that he said would soon be targeted, and warned residents to stay more than 500 meters away.

About 40 minutes later, at least two airstrikes hit Haret Hreik, sending a thick plume of smoke over the area. It was the first such attack since last Wednesday in the Dahiya, the Hezbollah-dominated area south of Beirut, where an Israeli airstrike killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in September.

The Israeli military said in a statement released late on Saturday that it had been targeting Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and a Hezbollah intelligence headquarters command center.

In brief remarks following the attack near his private residence, Mr. Netanyahu said that he would not be deterred in Israel’s fight with Hamas and Hezbollah, which he referred to as one of “Iran’s other terrorist proxies.”

“We’re going to win this war,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

Reporting was contributed by Rawan Sheikh AhmadAryn BakerQasim Nauman and Eric Schmitt.