An assassin drone was directed at Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea over Shabbat, crashing into the home. Although Netanyahu and his family were not there, the incident is seen as very serious. This is the first time Netanyahu has been targeted in the war.
Netanyahu responded to the assassination attempt by saying:
“Iran’s proxies, who today tried to assassinate my wife and me, have made a serious mistake,” he said. “This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing the war of renewal against our enemies, in order to ensure our security for generations to come.”
“I say to the Iranians and their partners in the axis of evil: Anyone who harms the citizens of Israel will pay a very heavy price. We will continue to eliminate your terrorists, we will bring our hostages home from Gaza, we will return our residents to the north. We will achieve all of the goals which we set for the war, and we will change the security situation in our region – for generations to come. Together we will fight, and with G-d’s help – together, we will win.”
With reports suggesting that Israel will launch its long awaited counter strike against Iran in the coming days, the west is scrambling in an attempt to tamp down on the severity of Israel’s response . Despite pressure from the America and others to scale back the strike, Israel is said to have held strong and is set to hit very strongly against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In connection to the strike, Axios reported that a leak by key figures in the American intelligence community to a pro-Iranian Telegram account of some of the plans connected to the attack may hamper Israel’s ability to trust America in regards to any attack it carries out against Iran’s radical Shiite regime. “A U.S. official told Axios that the alleged leak is extremely concerning, but that he doesn’t believe it would influence Israel’s operational plans against Iran.” Any leak on that level not only compromises the working relationship between Israel and Iran, but harms confidence in American military establishment across the globe.
Both the leak and Iran’s assassination attempt on Prime Minister Netanyahu will do the opposite of dissuading Israel from attacking Iran. If anything, Israel will attempt to not only attack key military sites, but perhaps take out the nuclear facilities and destabilize the regime itself.