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.
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 busting bomb 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.
It came after IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Saturday forces had killed 440 Hezbollah fighters so far in their invasion of Lebanon.
But he warned Israel that Hamas could attack events being held to mark the October 7 anniversary.
Hagari said soldiers were “continuing to fight and operate in Lebanon” and two divisions are manoeuvring in urban and other terrains.
He added: “So far 2,000 Hezbollah targets have been destroyed,” he says.
“Our soldiers are collecting a lot of intel and many weapons from Hezbollah.”
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