AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Israel says it carried out an airstrike on Beirut earlier today. The Israeli military said it killed a top Hezbollah commander. They blame him for a rocket attack over the weekend that killed 12 children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Lebanon's border. The Iranian-backed militant group had denied responsibility for the strike. The attack follows warnings from the U.S. and other countries over the past two days for citizens to leave Lebanon while they still can. Fears have grown that a cycle of retaliation could trigger an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel. To explain what is going on right now, NPR's Jane Arraf joins us now from Beirut. Hi, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so what do we know about this explosion and who the target might have been?
ARRAF: Well, it was an airstrike, midevening, that collapsed a building in Beirut's southern suburbs. The blast was loud enough that people in central Beirut, miles away, could hear it. Israel says it killed what it called Hezbollah's chief of staff. It said Fuad Shukr was one of the group's most senior commanders, close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. It said he was responsible for most of Hezbollah's most advanced weaponry.
Hezbollah hasn't confirmed he was killed. Lebanese reports here are quoting unnamed officials close to the group who are saying he survived. For someone of that level, they normally do announce deaths, but they just have not issued a statement at this point.
CHANG: Oh, OK. Well, we know that there have been warnings from Israeli officials that they could attack Beirut, but how much of a shock was this today?
ARRAF: It was a pretty big one. You know, this morning, we were at the Beirut International Airport, talking to passengers to see if anyone was taking advice from the U.S. and other countries to leave Lebanon while they still could. And there was no sense of panic. Lebanese and foreigners who live here are kind of used to a certain constant level of threat, but it's different when there's an actual strike.
Our producer, Jawad Rizkallah, was in a cafe in central Beirut when he heard the thud. When he got to the southern suburbs, where security was blocking the roads...
JAWAD RIZKALLAH, BYLINE: Here we're at the - the street has been closed off in the direction of the building that has been destroyed. And an ambulance has just arrived, and they're not allowing anyone to pass.
ARRAF: You can hear the ambulances, the speeding cars, the chaos.
CHANG: Yeah.
ARRAF: The collapsed building contained a meeting place - sort of a boardroom for Hezbollah commanders. But the building was also in a densely populated neighborhood. We still don't have confirmed reports of the numbers of dead, although initial reports said possibly one or two, and more than a dozen people were injured.
CHANG: Hmm. Well, has Hezbollah made any comment on the attack and what its own response might be?
ARRAF: Well, the real response everyone is awaiting is what Hezbollah does militarily. It denied that it launched the strike that killed the children on the weekend - members of the Druze minority in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. But it has also made clear repeatedly that it will respond in kind to any Israeli attack in Beirut. It's difficult to see that an attack of this magnitude, killing someone that senior, would go unanswered.
CHANG: Right. That is NPR's Jane Arraf in Beirut. Thank you, Jane.
ARRAF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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