Israeli warplanes on Tuesday swooped low over the Lebanon’s capital Beirut, breaking the sound barrier thrice in less than 30 minutes. This set off a chain of sonic booms that left people in the city rattled, running for cover, while some rushed to open their windows to prevent the glass from shattering.
This happened minutes before the people had gathered in Beirut to listen to the head of Hezbollah, who was slated to deliver a speech to mark the one-week anniversary of its senior military commander’s killing, news agency Reuters reported.
However, there has not been any comment from the Israeli military so far.
As the Israeli warplanes flew low over the capital, witnesses said that they could see the planes up close with their naked eyes. The booms were the loudest heard in Beirut in years, Reuters reported.
As per the report, one of the reporter even saw people at a cafe in the Badaro district scramble as the sound reverberated through Beirut.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was supposed to begin an address at around 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) to mark Fuad Shukr’s killing in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs. This strike was the second time Israel struck the city in the 10 months of hostilities between the two nations parallel to the war with Gaza.
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On Tuesday, Hezbollah had agreed to launching a swarm of drone attacks at two Israeli military sites in northern Israel near Acre. It had also attacked an Israeli military vehicle in another location, Retuers reported.
Israel,too, had stated that it had identified hostole drones crossing from Lebanon, of which one was interceprted.
After Shukr’s killing, Hezbollah vowed to take revenge from Israel for the attack.
This came just hours before the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital Tehran. Although Israel is being blamed for carrying out the attack that killed Haniyeh, the Jewish nation has neither confirmed nor denied undertaking the operation.
These twin killings have intensified the tensions in the middle east, pushing the region to the brink of war, with Iran, too vowing a response.
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