Israel Drops "Bunker Buster" Bombs on Apartment Complex in Beirut - Claims "Hezbollah Headquarters"
From Iranian media today
Barbaric attack on Beirut ordered from New York
Sources say Hezbollah leaders were the target of Israeli strikes
Israeli fighter jets launched a series of massive airstrikes on a crowded area in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday, causing widespread destruction with fears of a large death toll.
At least 10 explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs, a densely-populated area known as Dahiyeh, with large clouds of black smoke rising over the city.
At least six residential buildings were flattened in the raids with extensive damage reported in nearby structures, according to Al Jazeera.
At least one large crater was seen at the site of the attack and filmed by local media, as dozens of rescue workers and paramedics rushed to the scene.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Israel’s attacks on Beirut’s southern suburb show it “does not care” about efforts to bring about a ceasefire.
Mikati’s press office sent a statement while he was in New York for the UN General Assembly.
Video of the strikes suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground.
Israeli media reported that Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was the target and that the military was checking whether he had been hit. Sources close to Hezbollah told Reuters he was alive.
Friday’s strike in Beirut marked a major escalation by Israel, which has been gradually expanding deadly attacks on Lebanon in recent days.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has circulated a photograph of what it says is the prime minister using a landline telephone to approve the strike, the New York Times reported. The newspaper said Netanyahu was returning from New York to Israel.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the top UN official in Lebanon, said she was “deeply alarmed and profoundly worried about the potential civilian impact” of Israel’s “massive strikes”.
More than 700 people, including dozens of children have been killed since Israel launched a massive bombing campaign in Lebanon on Monday.
Initial coverage from Hal Turner
Israel Drops "Bunker Buster" Bombs on Apartment Complex in Beirut - Claims "Hezbollah Headquarters"
Israel has used F-35 Stealth jets, to drop SEVERAL, 2,000 pound, "Bunker-Buster" bombs on apartment buildings in downtown Beirut Lebanon. The IDF says it was Hezbollah Headquarters, and they also claim Hassan Nasrallah, the Leader of Hezbollah, was killed; but his death is disputed.
NEW: VIDEO AS THE STRIKE WAS TAKING PLACE:
Imagery from the scene shows the entry point of at least one of those Bunker-Busters:
Lebanese news channel reports that the Lebanese minister of health says some of the targeted buildings in Beirut suburb were full of residents. He said "There were four to six apartment buildings completely decimated and all the people are still in the rubble."
Lebanese Civil Defense Authorities state that they are currently unable to reach any of the Victims that are Trapped beneath the Rubble in Beirut, due to Fires that are burning under the Surface and Unstable Ground.
What is confirmed is that Hashim Safi al-Din (Picture below), the Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council and considered the “Number 2” in Hezbollah behind Hassan Nasrallah, was Killed in the Israeli Airstrike on Beirut.
"Israeli officials say senior Hezbollah officials were at the headquarters at the time of the attack... The primary target was Nasrallah"
Several Hezbollah outlets claim Nasrallah himself is "alive and safe" while other media outlets dispute this and say Nasrallah was "assassinated." Only time will tell which reports are correct.
In an indication of what has actually taken place, Hassan Nasrallah’s daughter has arrived under heavy guard at the scene of the massive destruction of Hezbollah HQ in Beirut. We don’t know if her father is alive, but let’s just say she’s not there to pay her respects to the janitors.
Hezbollah itself says "The rules of the game have changed, it is time for revenge."
The scene of the Israeli attack is a shambles. FOUR TO FIVE Entire apartment buildings lay in piles of rubble; LIKELY WITH HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE DEAD:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now here in New York City where he spoke at the United Nations, to an almost empty General Assembly. Most of the members of the UN General Assembly WALKED OUT as Netanyahu rose to speak to them.
UPDATE 3:06 PM EDT --
Israeli Broadcasting Authority, quoting an Israeli official: We have passed a stage, the direction is clear, and the consequences of the step may lead to a regional war.
-- Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials were present at Hezbollah's HQ at the time of the strikes. -reports
-- IRAN'S EMBASSY IN BEIRUT SAYS ISRAELI STRIKE REPRESENTS 'DANGEROUS GAME CHANGING ESCALATION'
UPDATE 3:30 PM EDT --
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called an emergency meeting (right now) of the Supreme National Security Council at his home, according to two Iranian officials with knowledge of the meeting. It is 11:00 at night in Tehran . . . . and the leader called an emergency meeting at his HOME? This is serious!
UPDATE 5:05 PM EDT --
Russia's foreign minister warns that "the Middle East stands on the brink of a full-scale war."
"The shock wave rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Beirut."
From Blazing Press
From Press TV
Some (western) sources are reporting it as a given that Hassan Nasrallah was killed but this is by no means a certainty
From Russian TASS
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah not hurt in Israeli attack — TV
The broadcaster said that the movement’s leadership would make a statement on Israel’s act of aggression against Lebanon in the coming hours
BEIRUT, September 27. /TASS/. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of the Hezbollah Shia movement, was not hurt in Israel’s attack on the group’s underground headquarters in Beirut, Al Hadath TV reports, citing sources.
Hezbollah sources confirmed that "Sheikh Nasrallah is safe and sound." The broadcaster added that the movement’s leadership would make a statement on Israel’s act of aggression against Lebanon in the coming hours.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency, in turn, confirmed that the Hezbollah leader was alive "and in a safe place."
Al Hadath said, citing Israeli sources, that the attack on the Hezbollah headquarters involved powerful aerial bombs designed to hit bunkers. At least six buildings collapsed at the site of the strike. According to preliminary reports, the attack caused numerous casualties.
The airstrike came during a Hezbollah leadership meeting where Sheikh Nasrallah could have been present.
From al - Jazeera
The Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah's central headquarters in Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday in an attack that shook the Lebanese capital and sent thick clouds of smoke over the city. The news outlet Axios cited an Israeli source as saying Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike and that the Israeli military was checking if he was hit. A source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah is alive, while Iran's Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe
BREAKING | The Israeli military is calling on Lebanese civilians near several buildings in the Dahiye suburb of Beirut to evacuate immediately.
Avichay Adraee, the military's Arabic spokesperson, publishes maps alongside the announcement, telling civilians to distance themselves at least 500 meters from three sites in Hadath and Laylaki.
Lebanese are fleeing from some areas of Beirut after the Israeli regime issued a new evacuation order for parts of the City.
BREAKING | The Israeli occupation launches new strikes at the southern suburbs of Beirut.
https://x.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1839784411304177690
Netanyahu gave the orders to wipe out an entire neighborhood in southern Beirut from the UN headquarters in New York
Netanyahu has a warrant out for his arrest. How come he was allowed in the US and the UN
The ICC has issued a warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest for war crimes.
The UN and the US are harboring an accused genocidal war criminal in NYC.
Lebanese are being killed with weapons supplied for, and paid for, by the United States
The response of Prof. Marandi (who is in Lebanon currently), to events
Mohammad Marandi emphasizes the need for individuals to boycott Western products and pressure their governments to sever ties with the Israeli regime.
On RT
Response from George Galloway
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/9/27/lebanese-civilians-fleeing-israeli-attacks-face-hardship-and-exploitation
Netanyahu accuses the world of anti-semitism at UN
Most walked out (or booed)
If you want to hear this psychopath in his own words here he is
From al-Jazeera
But Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is accused of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza, recently said that he refuses a truce.
“Our policy is clear: We’re continuing to strike Hezbollah with all [our] strength, and we won’t stop until we achieve all our objectives – first and foremost the return of northern residents to their homes,” he said, after landing in New York in advance of addressing the UN General Assembly on Friday.
At the Assembly, Netanyahu accused the UN of “anti-Semitism”. The Israeli leader said that singling out his country is “a moral stain on the United Nations”, making the institution “a swamp of anti-Semitism”.
“I say to you, until Israel – until the Jewish state – is treated like other nations, until this anti-Semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce,” he said.
He also spoke about the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, a UN body, against him and Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, linking the measure to anti-Semitism.
Netanyahu’s statement came after members of his far-right coalition threatened to collapse the government – and possibly Netanyahu’s political career – if a ceasefire were reached with Hezbollah.
Michael Young, an expert on Lebanon at Carnegie Middle East Center, told Al Jazeera that Israel will likely continue bombing mainly Shia-populated regions where Hezbollah governs.
He added that by escalating the conflict, via killing hundreds of civilians and displacing tens of thousands of people, Israel is trying to provoke Hezbollah into retaliating in kind.
Hezbollah has calibrated its attacks to hit Israeli military targets and outposts, to avoid civilian casualties that would give Israel a pretext to wreak further destruction on Lebanon, Young said.
Any scenario in which all of Lebanon is targeted risks deepening the opposition that some communities have towards Hezbollah, he added.
“Israel has crossed all red lines to provoke Hezbollah into bringing out its big guns, so that Israel can then respond much more violently,” he told Al Jazeera. “But Hezbollah has fired just one rocket at Tel Aviv and it seems that it was just a warning.”
“Hezbollah knows the trap that Israel is setting for them … Hezbollah does not want to be blamed for Lebanon’s destruction.”
Israel is trying to do to Lebanon what the US did to Japan, Germany, North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, etc.
It's the calling card of the Anglo-American-Zionist Empire. In the end, the Empire is destroying itself. So will Israel.
My contacts in Lebanon are determined to win and have no doubt of the outcome.
Stay strong.