Buchanan, Liberia.- Israeli fighter jets broke the sound barrier three times over Beirut in less than 30 minutes on Tuesday, triggering loud bangs that sent residents running for cover just before a speech by the head of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Israeli fighter jets flew low over the Lebanese capital, with some witnesses saying they could see them with the naked eye. The booms were the loudest heard in Beirut in years.
A Reuters reporter saw people in a cafe in Beirut’s Badaro district scatter as the sound echoed across the city.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was due to deliver a speech at around 5 p.m. to mark one week since the killing of the Lebanese armed group’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hezbollah has vowed to respond to the massacre, which came hours before the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in an operation attributed to Israel but whose responsibility Israel has neither confirmed nor denied.
The double killing has brought the region to the brink of war, and Iran has also vowed a painful response.
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