BBC reporter runs for cover as Hezbollah pounds Israeli border

A BBC reporter was force to run for cover as Hezbollah blasted the Israeli border with rockets. The BBC News crew had been filming on the Israeli side of the border, close to where clashes have been reported between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, before the gunfire began. After hearing some bursts of small arms fire and grenades from the Israeli army from across the border, the team of at least four could be seen backing away from the area as they headed for safety.

Lucy Williamson, donning protective headgear and a press vest, was filmed reporting from an empty road when sirens began to sound. ‘And now you can hear the sirens are going off, telling us to get out of the area,’ she said as she and her crew began running for urgent cover. Loud bangs and shouting could be heard in the tense footage as the team clambered up a rocky path and threw themselves to the ground as chaos unfolded around them.

A series of explosions erupted while the team remained on the ground. ‘We just heard a series of very loud explosions, what seems to be rockets landing nearby, some small arms fire across the border,’ Williamson said while poking her head out of some shrubbery. ‘It seems the Israeli army is pushing in to a location, and this was the response’.

After assessing the area, the team decided they were ‘good to go’ and made their way out of their cover spots before returning to their vehicle parked up on the side of the road. The air raid sirens that sounded in southern Israel were the first in around two months, the IDF said. ‘Almost a year after 7 October, Hamas is still threatening our civilians with their terrorism and we will continue operating against them,’ it said.

It comes as Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon, with the latest Israeli bombings flattening buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight. Israel launched the heaviest air strikes on Beirut so far with dozens reportedly left dead across Lebanon in the past day. An Israeli military spokesperson said that Israeli forces have killed around 250 Hezbollah fighters, including a number of battalion and company commanders, since the start of a ground operation in Lebanon. Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said that the military was still assessing the damage caused by air strikes in southern Beirut on Thursday night, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Dahiyeh.

The overnight strikes in Beirut also reportedly targeted Hashem Safieddine – an attempt to wipe out Hezbollah’s heir apparent after former chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed one week ago. It is unclear whether Saffieddine was present at the site of the attack. The intense bombardment came after the IDF issued yet another evacuation order for communities across southern Lebanon. Lebanese citizens were told to leave Nabatieh, a provincial capital, and other communities north of the Litani River, which formed the northern edge of the border zone established by the UN Security Council after the 2006 war in a resolution that both sides accuse the other of violating.

Israel also conducted one of its most deadly strikes in the West Bank in decades overnight, with at least 18 people said to have been killed at the Tulkarm refugee camp, Palestinian health authorities claim. The IDF reported its strike killed Hamas leader Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, who it accused of participating in numerous attacks. Israel announced this week that its troops had started ‘ground raids’ into parts of southern Lebanon, a stronghold of Hezbollah, after days of heavy bombardment of areas across the country where the group holds sway. At least nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in clashes with militants in the past three days as IDF units comb through villages in southern Lebanon to close off tunnels and eradicate Hezbollah positions. Hezbollah meanwhile claims it fought off Israeli troops on the border, set off two explosive devices against advancing soldiers, and ambushed an IDF united close to the village of Adaisseh.

The militant group also said it kept up its rocket fire across the border, with sirens warning of incoming fire blaring in northern Israel early this morning. The IDF’s ground operation has been supported by near-round-the-clock airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon, Syria and in Beirut, which sustained a constant barrage overnight. The escalating assaults by Israel come as it weighs retaliation for Iran’s wave of ballistic missiles fired at the country on Tuesday, with the United States saying Israel hitting Iranian oil facilities is on the table. The US has called for de-escalation and said this week it was also weighing up the options on the table for a response. And Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Beirut today where he will discuss with Lebanese officials the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel has said it would respond to Iran’s attacks, but does not seek all-out-war. Israel’s bombing in Lebanon has killed more than 1,000 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Hundreds of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes in a nation already mired in economic and political crisis. The Lebanese Red Cross said an Israeli strike also wounded four of its paramedics and killed a Lebanese army soldier as they were evacuating wounded people from the south. It said the convoy near the village of Taybeh, which was accompanied by Lebanese troops, was targeted Thursday despite coordinating its movements with UN peacekeepers.

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