Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier thrice over Lebanon’s Beirut in less than half-an-hour on Tuesday (August 6), just ahead of a speech by the head of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Israeli warplanes flew low past the Lebanese capital as the eyewitnesses claimed that they could see the planes with the naked eye. The booms were the loudest heard in Beirut in a number of years.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was set to begin an address at around 5 p.m. to mark one week since the killing of the Lebanese militant group's top military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs.
The latest development comes as Hezbollah on Tuesday (August 6) launched a series of drone and rocket attacks into northern Israel, but warned that the killing of a top commander last week by Israel was yet to be avenged. The attack was pointed to two military sites near Acre in northern Israel and also an Israeli military vehicle in another location. The Israeli military said that several hostile drones were identified crossing from Lebanon and one was intercepted. According to the medical officials in the country, seven people were evacuated to hospital, to the south of the coastal city of Nahariya, one in critical condition.
Hezbollah has vowed to respond to the killing of its commander, which came just hours before the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. The blame of the latter attack was put on Israel which neither accepted nor denied its responsibility. The twin killings have pushed the region to the brink of war, with Iran also vowing a painful response.
Tensions in the Middle East
Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire for the last 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war, with the tit-for-tat strikes mostly limited to the border area.
Last week, Israel killed Shukr, Hezbollah's senior-most military commander, in a strike on the group's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut. Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, vowed revenge, but said the response would be "studied." He is set to speak on Tuesday at the one-week memorial for Shukr.
