Lebanon: What we know so far about Israel's strike on Beirut
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00:00There's details emerging about this strike, which was a severe blow to Hezbollah.
00:05How was it carried out?
00:06Yeah, so what we've been hearing, and this is reported by Israeli media, it was actually
00:12a strike that was carried out with an F-15 fighter jet.
00:18As you know, Israel has a lot of those and actually just recently signed a contract in
00:22August to purchase another 50 from the United States.
00:25Well they used this fighter jet that fired four missiles to this apartment block.
00:30The meeting that they were informed of just about an hour before the strike was taking
00:40place underneath the building in an underground cave, if you will, under the building.
00:48And indeed, well, they hit the building twice on the surface and then had two missiles aiming
00:55specifically to this underground area where this meeting was being held.
01:00Now we've been hearing that around 10 major, some of the most important commanders in the
01:05Hezbollah military branch were killed, along with Ibrahim Akil.
01:09Of course, this is a very severe blow to the organization, who has indeed in a statement
01:15said that within the past 48 hours they had lost 19 of their members.
01:20So of course this means that, as you can imagine, having a meeting of this kind does
01:25lead to show that indeed Hezbollah is in a situation where their communications are down.
01:29As we know, they've lost their pages, radios have been exploding on the following day.
01:33Of course, they know that the whole cell phone system is compromised.
01:37So very probably they were meeting in the flesh in order to discuss what their next
01:41move would be.
01:42And that is what Israel is claiming, that they will prepare an attack on the north of
01:45the country.
01:46And this attack coming in Lebanon's capital, in a suburb that is very densely populated.
01:52So a lot of fears about what's next.
01:54Israel promised more attacks in the days to come.
01:56How are people in Beirut reacting?
01:59Well, people in Beirut are worried.
02:02What they're seeing is that basically Hezbollah seems rather powerless to react.
02:07Of course, they have sent a barrage of missiles into northern Israel.
02:11But indeed, they do seem to struggle in order to find a response.
02:17Now, of course, as you know, Lebanon is a very diverse country.
02:20Hezbollah represents only one part of the population, so they do control most of the
02:25south of the country.
02:26It really is a state within the state.
02:28Here in Lebanon, people are worried that indeed this could escalate into a war.
02:32They're also realizing this is a powerful message that's being sent by Israel at the
02:35moment, that Israel can very simply fly fighter jets into Lebanon unhindered and hit whatever
02:41targets they want.
02:43And there is a bit of a psychosis here in the sense where people are worried that they
02:47might be wounded if a device explodes in the hands or close to someone, for example, from
02:54Hezbollah.
02:55People telling me that indeed they're keeping their distance.
02:57They don't know if they should or should not attend public functions, for example.
03:01And this, of course, is worrying to the people.
03:04People are here thinking, you know, that any time, anywhere, things could blow up.
03:09And we've seen yesterday with the team, the doctors who've been treating those who've
03:13been injured by the Pager attack, well, of course, these are awful injuries.
03:16These people were holding these devices in front of their faces.
03:18They lost their eyes.
03:19They lost their fingers.
03:20And, of course, that has made a strong mark on the Lebanese public here, who indeed is
03:26bracing for what's to follow.
03:27All right, James.
03:28Thank you very much.
03:29James Andre reporting from Beirut.