Israeli warplanes flew low over the Lebanese capital (representative image)
Beirut, Lebanon:
Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over Beirut three times in less than 30 minutes on Tuesday, triggering loud booms that sent people in the city running for cover just before a speech by the head of the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah.
Israeli warplanes flew low over the Lebanese capital, with witnesses saying they could see the planes with the naked eye. The explosions were the loudest heard in Beirut in years.
A Reuters reporter saw people at a cafe in Beirut’s Badaro district dispersing as the sound echoed through the city.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was due to begin a speech at around 5 p.m. (2 p.m. GMT) to mark one week since the killing of Fuad Shukr, the Lebanese armed group’s top military commander, in an Israeli attack in Beirut’s southern suburbs .
Hezbollah has vowed to respond to the killing, which came just hours before the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in an operation attributed to Israel but which Israel has neither confirmed nor denied.
The twin killings have brought the region to the brink of war, with Iran also vowing a painful response.
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