A drone targets the Israeli prime minister's house while strikes in Gaza kill more than 50

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house Saturday, with no casualties, as fighting with Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Gaza -based Hamas showed no pause after the killing of the Hamas mastermind of last year’s Oct. 7 attack.

Israel's military said dozens of projectiles were launched from Lebanon a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase in fighting. Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife were there. It wasn't clear if the house was hit.

“The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me and my wife made a bitter mistake,” Netanyahu said.

Hezbollah didn't claim responsibility for the drone attack, but said it carried out several rocket attacks on northern and central Israel. The barrage came as Israel is expected to respond to an attack earlier this month by Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Israel in turn carried out at least 10 airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area home to Hezbollah's offices, Lebanese authorities said. Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets.

In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at hospitals in the Palestinian enclave's battered north, and strikes killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.

“The possibility of war in the region remains a serious concern,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said while visiting Turkey. Group of Seven defense ministers warned against escalation and “all-out war.”

The Israel-Hezbollah war has intensified. Hezbollah said Friday it planned to send more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon early this month.

Israel’s military on Saturday said about 180 projectiles were fired from Lebanon. A 50-year-old man was hit by shrapnel and killed in northern Israel, and four other people were wounded, Israel’s medical services said. In the northern city of Kiryat Ata, one rocket landed. Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa area, said nine people were slightly injured.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in eastern Baaloul village killed five people, including the mayor of nearby Sohmor village. An Israeli military official confirmed that the IDF struck targets in the Bekaa Valley.

Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle on a highway north of Beirut, killing two people.

Israel has issued near-daily warnings for people to leave buildings and villages in parts of Lebanon. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, including around 400,000 children.

Israel also said it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel.

Israel and Hamas have signaled resistance to ending the war in Gaza after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the chief architect of the raid on Israel more than a year ago that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.

Israel’s military on Saturday dropped leaflets in southern Gaza showing Sinwar dead, blood running down his forehead. "Sinwar destroyed your lives,” it said. “Whoever lays down his weapons and returns the kidnapped people to us, we will allow him to leave and live in peace.”

Hamas has reiterated that the hostages won't be released until there is a cease-fire and Israeli troops withdraw. Netanyahu says Israel's military will fight until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don't distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children.

More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday, and Palestinian communications company Paltel said they knocked out internet networks in the north.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and forces opened fire at it, causing panic. Israel's military said it was operating near the hospital and “there was no intentional fire directed at it.”

The military also said it was looking into the matter after Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, said strikes hit the top floors, wounding several staff members. It later said the military hit an ambulance, wounding four people, including a medic.

Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight, killing at least 30 people, more than half women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least 80 were wounded.

Palestinian residents said Israel’s military was forcing hundreds of displaced people to leave Jabaliya and head to Gaza City.

“The occupation evicted us at gunpoint,” said Umm Sayed, a mother of three. “Tanks and heavy armed forces were encircling us.” She said many young men were taken apparently for interrogation, and most were later released.

Israel’s military described it as an evacuation and said it detained militants for questioning.

A U.N. school sheltering displaced people west of Gaza City was hit, killing several people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense first responders.

“What is this? There is a clinic and there are children,” said Bashir Haddad, a displaced person there, according to AP video. A boy collected body parts on a piece of cardboard.

Elsewhere in central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Another strike killed 11 people from the same family in the Maghazi refugee camp, the hospital said.

The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.

Associated Press writers Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

People protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A woman demonstrator takes part in a performance calling for the release of hostage Naama Levy, held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Women demonstrators take part in a performance calling for the release of hostage Naama Levy, held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, as the sunset in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Municipality workers survey the damage to an apartment building struck by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in Kiryat Ata, northern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Israeli security forces secure a road near where Israel's government says a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Caesarea, Israel Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Officers from the Israeli Home Front Command military unit walk on a road near where Israel's government says a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Caesarea, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli security forces secure a road near where Israel's government says a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Caesarea, Israel Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

FILE - Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, File)

RHO, Italy (AP) — No ice is colder and harder than speedskating ice. The precision it takes has meant that Olympic speedskaters have never competed for gold on a temporary indoor rink – until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games.

In the pursuit of maximum glide and minimum friction, Olympic officials brought on ice master Mark Messer, a veteran of six previous Olympic speedskating tracks and the ice technician in charge of the Olympic Oval in Calgary, Canada — one of the fastest tracks in the world with over 300 records.

Messer has been putting that experience to work one thin layer of ice at a time since the end of October at the new Speed Skating Stadium, built inside adjacent trade fair halls in the city of Rho just north of Milan.

“It’s one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in icemaking,’’ Messer said during an interview less than two weeks into the process.

If Goldilocks were a speedskater, hockey ice would be medium hard, for fast puck movement and sharp turns. Figure skating ice would be softer, allowing push off for jumps and so the ice doesn’t shatter on landing. Curling ice is the softest and warmest of all, for controlled sliding.

For speedskating ice to be just right, it must be hard, cold and clean. And very, very smooth.

“The blades are so sharp, that if there is some dirt, the blade will lose the edge,’’ Messer said, and the skater will lose speed.

Speedskater Enrico Fabris, who won two Olympic golds in Turin in 2006, has traded in his skates to be deputy sports manager at the speedskating venue in Rho. For him, perfect ice means the conditions are the same for all skaters — and then if it's fast ice, so much the better.

"It's more of a pleasure to skate on this ice,'' he said.

Messer’s first Olympics were in Calgary in 1988 — the first time speedskating was held indoors. “That gave us some advantages because we didn’t have to worry about the weather, wind blowing or rain,’’ he said. Now he is upping the challenge by becoming the first ice master to build a temporary rink for the Olympics.

Before Messer arrived in Italy, workers spent weeks setting up insulation to level the floor and then a network of pipes and rubber tubes that carry glycol — an antifreeze — that is brought down to minus 7 or minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 to 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit) to make the ice.

Water is run through a purification system — but it can’t be too pure, or the ice that forms will be too brittle. Just the right amount of impurities “holds the ice together,’’ Messer said.

The first layers of water are applied slowly, with a spray nozzle; after the ice reaches a few centimeters it is painted white — a full day’s work — and the stripes are added to make lanes.

“The first one takes about 45 minutes. And then as soon as it freezes, we go back and do it again, and again and again. So we do it hundreds of times,’’ Messer said.

As the ice gets thicker, and is more stable, workers apply subsequent layers of water with hoses. Messer attaches his hose to hockey sticks for easier spreading.

What must absolutely be avoided is dirt, dust or frost — all of which can cause friction for the skaters, slowing them down. The goal is that when the skaters push “they can go as far as possible with the least amount of effort,’’ Messer said.

The Zamboni ice resurfacing machine plays a key role in keeping the track clean, cutting off a layer and spraying water to make a new surface.

One challenge is gauging how quickly the water from the resurfacing machine freezes in the temporary rink.

Another is getting the ice to the right thickness so that the Zamboni, weighing in at six tons, doesn’t shift the insulation, rubber tubing or ice itself.

“When you drive that out, if there’s anything moving it will move. We don’t want that,’’ Messer said.

The rink got its first big test on Nov. 29-30 during a Junior World Cup event. In a permanent rink, test events are usually held a year before the Olympics, leaving more time for adjustments. “We have a very small window to learn,’’ Messer acknowledged.

Dutch speedskater Kayo Vos, who won the men’s neo-senior 1,000 meters, said the ice was a little soft — but Messer didn’t seem too concerned.

“We went very modest to start, now we can start to change the temperatures and try to make it faster and still maintain it as a safe ice,’’ he said.

Fine-tuning the air temperature and humidity and ice temperature must be done methodically — taking into account that there will be 6,000 spectators in the venue for each event. The next real test will be on Jan. 31, when the Olympians take to the ice for their first training session.

“Eighty percent of the work is done but the hardest part is the last 20 percent, where we have to try to find the values and the way of running the equipment so all the skaters get the same conditions and all the skaters get the best conditions,’’ Messer said.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Serpentines are set on the ice of the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Workers clean the ice surface during a peed skating Junior World Cup and Olympic test event, in Rho, near Milan, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)