A HUGE explosion has ripped through Beirut after an Israeli airstrike hit the city and caused a huge blaze.
Footage has captured the giant fireball erupting from the already burning blaze in the same suburb as where Hezbollah’s leader was recently killed.
Pixel8000A massive fire is burning in Beirut tonight after an IDF airstrike[/caption]
Pixel8000A number of secondary explosions have subsequently also happened[/caption]
Israel had told locals to evacuate just hours before the fresh strikes
ReutersA was burning before the eruption[/caption]
ReutersIt is not yet clear what was targeted by the IDF[/caption]
It is not clear whether the explosion is caused by a fresh airstrike by Israeli forces or is an eruption caused by something burning on the ground.
Locals reported a number of Israeli strikes on the city with a drone buzzing overhead just beforehand.
Israel told locals to evacuate after saying it was targeting “Hezbollah facilities and interests”.
The BBC reported there are ongoing secondary explosions after a petrol station could have been hit.
They said two air strikes hit the site, a warehouse, but after the fire started other explosions started.
In a statement, the IDF said: “The IDF is currently attacking terrorist targets of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the Beirut area.”
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an underground command post in Dahieh last week.
The IDF then pounded the suburb with 80 bombs over just several minutes in the late afternoon destroying the hideaway.
The bunker reached 50m underground and held a number of other senior members of the group.
Lebanese media also reported that a fire had broken out at the studios of Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet Al Manar, in the same suburb.
At the same time as the IDF struck Beirut, a barrage of rockets was sent by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Kiryat Shmona.
Benjamin Netanyahu slams calls for arms embargo as ‘shameful’
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu addressed his country tonight and slammed French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call for an arms embargo today as “shameful”.
He said: “What a disgrace, let me tell you this: Israel will win with or without their support but their shame will continue long after the war has won.”
Netanyahu claims the war is defending “civilisation” against “barbarism” and “those who seek to impose a dark age of fanaticism on all of us”.
In a post on X today, Macron said: “There must be no war in Lebanon.
“We strongly urge Israel to stop the escalation in Lebanon, Hezbollah to cease firing towards Israel, and all those providing them with the means to do so to stop.”