BEIRUT: Hezbollah claimed responsibility Tuesday for a drone attack last week targeting the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and acknowledged that some of its fighters have been take captive by the Israeli army.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif made the remarks during a press conference in Beirut’s southern suburbs that was cut short following an Israeli evacuation warning for the area.
An Israeli strike hit a target hundreds of meters (yards) away from the site of the conference just minutes after journalists left, an AFP video journalist said.
Hezbollah “declares its full, complete and exclusive responsibility for the Caesarea operation targeting... Netanyahu,” Afif said.
On Saturday, Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate him and his wife after a drone was launched toward his residence in the central town of Caesarea.
Afif also acknowledged that some of the group’s fighters were captured by the Israeli army without giving numbers.
“On the issue of captives currently held by the enemy, I say: I know that the enemy is not committed to the ethics of war and international conventions but it bears the responsibility of preserving the lives of the captives,” Afif said.
Previously, the Israeli army said it has captured a total of four Hezbollah fighters since the start of its ground offensive in Lebanon, and released video footage it said showed one of them answering questions.
Afif also said the group’s micro-financing firm Al-Qard Al-Hassan took all necessary precautions ahead of Israeli strikes last week, vowing to “fulfil its obligations” toward depositors.
The firm “had anticipated such... an aggression and has taken all precautions and will do everything that is necessary to fulfil its obligations toward depositors,” he said.

KASSALA, Sudan: Local activists in central Sudan have reported over 50 people killed since clashes erupted in Al-Jazira state on Sunday after a paramilitary commander defected to the army.
In the state capital of Wad Madani, a military air strike on a mosque killed 31 people, the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the war-torn country, said in a statement to AFP on Tuesday.
They accused the army of using “barrel bombs,” adding that over half of the dead remained unidentified as rescuers combed through the remains of “dozens of charred and mutilated bodies.”
In the state’s war-ravaged east, activists said at least 20 people have been killed in paramilitary attacks since Sunday.
War has raged between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, killing tens of thousands of people and creating the world’s largest displacement and humanitarian crises.
The two forces are currently locked in brutal combat over central Sudan’s agricultural Al-Jazira state, which has been under paramilitary control since late last year.
On Sunday, the army announced that the RSF’s Al-Jazira commander Abu Aqla Kaykal had abandoned the paramilitary force, bringing “a large number of his forces” to “fight alongside our army,” in what they said was the first high-profile defection to the military’s side.
A spokesman for army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan said Kaykal and others who defect would receive “amnesty,” as war-weary civilians braced for renewed attacks.
Mere hours after the army took control of Tamboul — 75 kilometers (46 miles) north of Wad Madani — eyewitnesses reported RSF troops were back “rampaging” through the city.
They said paramilitary soldiers were “shooting randomly in the air” and forcing civilians to carry looted cargo.
By Tuesday, the RSF had “repelled an army attempt” to regain the town of Tamboul, a paramilitary source told AFP, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The RSF has long been accused of rampant looting, laying siege to entire villages and systemic sexual violence in Al-Jazira and across Sudan.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including targeting civilians, indiscriminately shelling residential areas and blocking or looting aid.
In the town of Rufaa, just 50 kilometers north of the state capital, the local resistance committee on Tuesday said RSF attacks on a series of villages in eastern Al-Jazira resulted in at least 20 deaths.
The activists accused the paramilitaries of carrying out “vengeful operations against defenseless” civilians, in response to Kaykal’s defection.
According to the volunteer group Central Observatory for Human Rights, at least seven towns and villages have been hit by “vengeful attacks that pay no heed to the rights of civilians during wartime.”