00:00The fear is indescribable, say residents of the Lebanese capital, as Israel launches yet another large-scale series of attacks
00:08on southern suburbs of Beirut.
00:10An airstrike hit an apartment block in the centre of the city on Wednesday, further widening Israeli attacks in the
00:17capital beyond the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs.
00:20Ninety-one children are now known to have died in the fighting, while more than 800,000 people have been
00:27forced to flee their homes.
00:29Well, for the very latest, let's, of course, live now to our senior reporter.
00:32Catherine Norris-Trent is standing by for us in Beirut.
00:36Catherine, a fresh wave of Israeli airstrikes getting onto there again tonight.
00:42What is the very latest where you are?
00:46Good evening, Sharon.
00:48Earlier this evening, we saw a series of large explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
00:56That's on the skyline just behind me here, and several loud blasts in a row, sending thick plumes of black
01:04smoke into the air.
01:06This came after the Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesman posted on social media that the IDF had just begun a,
01:16quote,
01:16large-scale airstrike campaign against what they say are Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in the southern suburbs there.
01:23So, you know, this is an area, these southern suburbs of Beirut, which have been regularly bombed day and night
01:29for the past week now.
01:32But the Israeli military signaling is about to step up that air campaign, and we think we've been seeing the
01:38start of that tonight with those loud blasts.
01:42Videos coming out on social media show several buildings there on fire.
01:46Now, Israel had hauled on everyone living in those southern suburbs, known as the Dahir, to evacuate,
01:54but we went there ourselves a few days ago and saw that that wasn't the case, that some people were
01:59still there,
02:00others were coming home to get their things.
02:03And so it's unclear how many people remain.
02:06Before this evacuation warning around a week ago, there had been hundreds of thousands of people living.
02:13It's a big area of southern Beirut, so unclear how many people are still there, but very large-scale strikes
02:18going on tonight.
02:20And, Catherine, Iran-backed militants also stepping up their campaign, it appears.
02:25Hezbollah says it's beginning a new phase of its offensive against Israel.
02:28What more do we know?
02:32Yeah, so Hezbollah has put out its own statement tonight on social media, on Telegram,
02:37saying that they have launched a new phase in their fight against Israel,
02:42and they launched, it appears, their largest barrage yet against Israel,
02:48firing, it seems, around 100 rockets into northern Israel, into areas including the city of Haifa,
02:55that being confirmed by Israeli sources as well.
02:58And, interestingly, that seems to have been in close concertation with Iran.
03:01So, obviously, Hezbollah has strong links to Iran, but the timing of that large barrage of missiles
03:07came as Iran launched a swathe of ballistic missiles into the Israeli airspace as well.
03:13So, this could be signaling a step up in their campaign there, Hezbollah, in the south of Lebanon.
03:21Israel has warned that it will hit back with overwhelming force.
03:25So, perhaps we could be seeing a new phase of this already very violent, very deadly conflict here opening up.
03:31Catherine, thanks so much for that. Do stay safe there in Beirut.
03:35That's our senior reporter, Catherine Lars-Trent, joining us live from the Lebanese capital.
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