Watch a live view of smoke rising over Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, on Sunday (6 October) after Israel struck the city.
Huge consecutive strikes hit the city’s southern suburbs late Saturday into Sunday with booms heard across the city and flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometres away, according to Reuters eyewitnesses.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Saturday that Israel had killed 440 Hezbollah fighters in ground operations in southern Lebanon and destroyed 2,000 Hezbollah targets. No death tolls were released by the Iran-backed group.
Fears of an all-out war across the Middle East have risen in the wake of lran launching almost 200 ballistic missiles in an attack on Israel, marking a major escalation in the conflict between the two nations.
Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to defeat Iran’s “Axis of Evil”, saying: “We are at the height of a difficult war… we will stand together and with God’s help, we will win together.”
This week, Israel’s army chief said Israel would strike back.
“We will respond. We can locate important targets and we can hit them precisely and powerfully,” said the chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi, in a video from an air force base in central Israel. “We have the capability to reach and strike every location in the Middle East and those of our enemies who have not yet understood this will understand this soon.”