Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00No update out of Lebanon, no confirmation by Hezbollah.
00:03We haven't seen any statement by Hezbollah within the past 12 hours since Israel has
00:09carpet bombed that neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburb.
00:14Six buildings collapsed, and then Israel attacked with bunker buster missiles deep, penetrating
00:20deep underground, supposedly where the meeting was taking place.
00:24No comments whatsoever from Hezbollah until this moment.
00:28Also concerning is that there is a lot of uncertainty here in Lebanon, as no official
00:33has addressed the Lebanese public just yet about everything that's going on, be it the
00:38potential assassination of Hassan Nasrallah or the ongoing escalation between Hezbollah
00:43and Israel and the attacks on Beirut's southern suburb.
00:46We haven't heard any statement from the speaker of parliament, Nabih Birri.
00:51We haven't heard any statement or address to the public by the caretaker, Prime Minister
00:57on his way back to Lebanon from New York, where he was attending the UN General Assembly.
01:04We also confirm, of course, that Lebanon is in a current presidential vacuum, so there
01:08is no president in the country.
01:11So just a lot of uncertainty going on.
01:14No one is giving the Lebanese answers about anything, being the fate of Hassan Nasrallah
01:19or what's going on in terms of this escalation in Lebanon.
01:25What we know for a fact is that I spoke a while ago to the minister of environment,
01:30Nasr Yassin, who is also responsible for the emergency unit within the cabinet for what's
01:36going on in terms of war developments.
01:39He told me that the caretaker, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, will be holding an exceptional
01:43session for the cabinet at 7.30 p.m. as soon as he lands in Beirut to inform the public
01:52of what's going on and to handle the situation.
01:56According to Nasr Yassin, the official stance of the Lebanese government is they are seeking
02:01de-escalation and seeking full implementation of Resolution 1701.
02:05A lot of uncertainty here.
02:08We are waiting to see potentially how could the streets and the people, especially the
02:13supporters of Hezbollah, react if he was to be announced officially dead or assassinated
02:20by Hezbollah themselves in the next coming hours.
02:25In terms of updates on the ground, the intensity of bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs,
02:29as we're seeing live in the footage, has somewhat decreased compared to the night hours.
02:35During the night, this place, which I was in, was shaking the entire night.
02:40We couldn't sleep at all.
02:42Right now we're seeing an airstrike or two every now and then, but it's not to be compared
02:49to what was happening overnight.
02:52We've also seen a number of airstrikes in different parts of the country, be it southern
02:56Lebanon, be it the east side of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
03:00Rawad, these airstrikes continuing, are people saying that they're going to remain there
03:05at home or are they going to leave their homes?
03:10Now we know for a fact that as of Monday, when Israel started intensifying its bombing
03:14of southern Lebanon, we've seen a mass evacuation of southern Lebanon.
03:18At least up until yesterday evening, 90,000 people had fled southern Lebanon and moved
03:23into evacuation centers put forth by the government in public schools in different areas.
03:29However, Beirut's southern suburb, Dahiyyik, was not evacuated earlier this week.
03:35Most of the residents were still there.
03:37So we've seen another wave of mass evacuation out of Beirut's southern suburbs in the last
03:49few hours, and overnight people walked out of Beirut's southern suburbs on foot, especially
03:56after the intensifying bombardments happened.
03:59We don't have accurate figures of the total number of people who have fled Beirut's southern
04:06suburbs overnight, but according to initial estimates, tens of thousands have fled overnight.
04:11This resulted in the caretaker government to take extra measures and opening 150 extra
04:17locations, mostly located in the north of the country, and in safer parts of Beirut
04:24to cater to all those who left Beirut's suburbs overnight.
04:28So the total estimate of the number of people who are currently displaced in Lebanon could
04:32be easily above half a million people.