THIS is the moment an Israeli rocket blows up an entire tower block in Lebanon’s capital in a fireball and cloud of smoke.
Crystal clear footage shows an Israeli rocket shooting through the sky and striking the base of a building in southern Beirut on Friday with a deafening boom.
The video captures the whole block crumbling as a ball of flames erupts and clouds of dark grey smoke engulf the rubble.
Terrified onlookers can be seen scrambling away from the blast and shouting in panic.
One man is seen throwing his hands up in despair.
The rocket struck the Ghobeiry neighbourhood of Beirut, an area Israel’s warplanes have battered repeatedly.
This was Israel’s latest attack in its war against Hezbollah as they seek to destroy the terror group which has launched waves of attacks from across the border in Lebanon.
Tel Aviv has vowed to wipe out the group after 60,000 citizens were evacuated from northern Israel.
The Israeli Air Force (IDF) hits Hezbollah targets from the sky, whilst the IDF operates on the ground.
The Israeli military told people to evacuate the area in Beirut 50 minutes before the strike.
In a post on X, a military spokesman said residents near Hezbollah strongholds in the area should get out.
Israeli official Avichay Adraee wrote: “All residents in the southern suburb area, specifically… in the Ghobeiry area, you are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately.”
His social media post included a map highlighting certain buildings and told people to stay at least 1,600ft away.
In a follow-up post, Adraee said Israel had destroyed Hezbollah targets “hidden deep within the population” – including weapons depots and a terrorist HQ.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
By Oliver Harvey, Chief Feature Writer
MORTAL enemies Hezbollah and Israel are in open warfare, risking a deadly wider conflict in the troubled region.
After decades of bloodshed, the powerful and well-armed Islamist militia has tentacles stretching across the globe.
With Iran’s ayatollah as its puppet master, Hezbollah says it has 100,000 fanatical fighters at its call.
Analysts estimate it has as many as 500,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israel.
Military expert Professor Michael Clarke said: “Hezbollah are a formidable force. They’re very well equipped. They’ve got more tunnels than Hamas had.
“The tunnels in Lebanon are burrowed out of rock, and hard to destroy. They have around half a million projectiles that they can fire at Israel.
“If they chose to fire off great salvos of these things, a thousand or so at a time, three or four times a day, they are likely to overwhelm Israeli air defences.”
Hezbollah first made their name as a terrorist outfit in 1982 when Israel invaded its northern neighbour Lebanon to root out the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In the bloody fighting, Israel occupied the south of the country and Shia Muslim militias took up arms against the invaders.
Seeing an opportunity to extend its influence, Iran provided funding and training to the group which became known as Hezbollah — meaning Party Of God.
Hell-bent on destroying Israel, it was soon wreaking havoc.
In 1983, it launched a suicide bombing of barracks in the Lebanese capital Beirut, housing US and French troops, leaving more than 300 dead.
The same year, another Hezbollah terrorist drove a van packed with explosives into the compound of the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 63.
The terror group — which is also a political party providing education and health care — developed a taste for kidnapping, too.
Then in 2006, a separate full-blown war was triggered by a deadly cross-border raid by Hezbollah.
It was supposed to be a pushover for Israel’s well-trained regular armed forces against a guerilla army.
But as the Israeli tanks rolled into Lebanon they were quickly met with firm resistance.
Hezbollah had tunnelled deep into Lebanon’s craggy hillsides and built well-fortified positions amid its towns and villages.
Rather than the ragtag irregulars the Israelis expected, they faced highly trained and well-armed troops with night-vision goggles and sophisticated communications.
But withering Israeli strikes decapitating the leadership of the Iran-backed group and demolishing hundreds of buildings across Lebanon started eight weeks ago.
The offensive was originally planned to last around a fortnight but has been extended as ground troops in the south and war jets extended their mission.
Israeli Defence Forces said more than 120 Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon have been hit over 24 hours, including a command centre in the Nabatieh governorate.
In Lebanon, more than 3,300 people have been reported killed and at least 14,000 wounded by Israeli attacks provoked by thousands of rockets fired into northern Israel.
More than a million Lebanese civilians have been forced to flee the fighting as the World Bank estimated that the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7 terror has cost £6.3 billion.
