A massive explosion has been filmed filling the sky with black smoke and rocking nearby buildings in Lebanon after a reported Israeli airstrike.
The huge mushroom cloud blast was caught on a camera in footage seemingly shot from a nearby balcony in the seaside city Sidon.
In a post shared on X, formerly Twitter, by US-based defence researcher Joe Truzman, the video appears to show one large blast followed by a second some distance away.
In the background, a woman can be heard wailing as the sound of jet engines fills the air.
Captioning the video Mr Truzman, from the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote: “Israeli airstrike in the Sidon area, located in Lebanon. The area is considerably farther north than where the usual fighting has taken place.”
Sidon is a city in Lebanon, a country north of Israel that is known to harbour the Shiite Muslim political party and militant group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah have launched a series of sporadic rocket attacks on Israel since the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas was launched from Gaza, but so far the group has been unwilling to declare outright hostilities with the Israel.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday, Hezbollah had been warned not to provoke Israel into an all-out war with Lebanon.
The Times of Israel reports IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the Israeli airforce was behind the explosions in Lebanon today.
He said the military attacks were against Hezbollah in response to explosive drone attacks which detonated near the northern town of Arbel, in Israel, this morning.
In a televised address Rear Admiral Hagari said: “We located an unmanned aerial vehicle from Hezbollah near Tiberias, which apparently crossed today and crashed near Tiberias. In response to this activity, we attacked weapons depots near Sidon.”
