SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
It has been a tumultuous week in the Middle East. Israel turned thousands of Hezbollah pagers and two-way radios into small bombs that killed dozens and wounded thousands. Then yesterday, Israel delivered an airstrike that killed dozens of people more, including two Hezbollah military commanders. We're joined now by NPR's Jane Arraf in Beirut and Ruth Sherlock in Tel Aviv. Thank you both for being with us.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Thank you.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Thank you, Scott.
SIMON: Jane, let's begin with you, if we can. Israel has not publicly taken responsibility for that wave of attacks that used Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies. It is claiming yesterday's airstrikes in Beirut. Tell us what happened.
ARRAF: Yeah. It was Friday rush hour, and the streets were full of people coming from work and children returning from school when the airstrike collapsed a building in a residential neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs. Lebanese health officials say at least 31 people were killed, including three children and seven women. Hezbollah announced the death of 16 fighters, included in that total. We - I and producer Jawad Rizkallah - arrived as emergency vehicles were still trying to get through. Security forces, Hezbollah security, were trying to hold people back.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: The target was a Hezbollah commander in charge of the group's special forces, but the blast collapsed parts of nearby apartment buildings. It was extremely tense. Earlier this week, as you mentioned, an Israeli attack blew up pagers and radios, killing more than 30 fighters and civilians. And those attacks wounded a staggering 3,000 people.
Last night, neighborhood residents gathered on the sidewalks, waiting for news of missing relatives in the airstrikes. We spoke with a blacksmith who was searching for his brother-in-law's family, including a 4-year-old girl and a teenager. And, Scott, when we went back this morning, he told us they were no longer missing. The entire family was dead. He was waiting for their bodies to be recovered.
SIMON: Ruth, what has Israel said about the men that it targeted in yesterday's attack?
SHERLOCK: Well, Ibrahim Aqil, the commander, the top commander, was wanted for a long time by both Israel and the United States. You know, Scott, last year, the State Department even posted a $7 million reward for information that would lead to Aqil being located or arrested. And this is because the U.S. says he was involved in a major terror attack in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy and then at the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon.
Now, the Israeli military yesterday said Aqil was the mastermind in a Hezbollah plan to take control of parts of northern Israel. The military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said Hezbollah had been planning an operation similar to the deadly attack by Hamas on Southern Israel on October 7 last year, but he didn't provide any evidence for this claim. Israel said the strike on Beirut also killed several other Hezbollah operatives, and Hezbollah has confirmed that - you know, they've said more than a dozen of their members were killed.
SIMON: Jane, these attacks appear to have caught Hezbollah by surprise. What do they say about any possible response?
ARRAF: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah described this as probably the biggest security breach in the group's history. It's clearly cut into their communications ability, and it's raised questions of infiltration. Yesterday's airstrike was the deadliest Israeli attack in Beirut in almost 20 years, since 2006, that war between Israel and Hezbollah. And it follows Israel's killing of Nasrallah's deputy. Fuad Shukr, in an attack in Beirut in July. Hezbollah responded to that attack in the summer by launching hundreds of missiles at Israel. This week, after the pager attacks, Nasrallah vowed revenge in ways Israel wouldn't expect. He hasn't yet spoken about yesterday's strike.
SIMON: Ruth Sherlock, you were in northern Israel yesterday where many of these rockets from Lebanon have been landing. What was it like there?
SHERLOCK: Yeah. Well, we went to Nahariya, which is the closest city to the northern border with Lebanon. And, Scott, the atmosphere was really tense. Just as we were doing interviews there, people received all these alerts on their phones of multiple incoming rocket attacks that were landing just northeast of the city. There were about 140 rockets that landed yesterday.
And up there, Scott, you know, the siren that warns of these types of attacks tends to go off just a few seconds before the rockets actually impact. In fact, one resident told me, sometimes, the rockets hit before the siren warns. So you feel really exposed just standing or walking on the street. One woman I spoke with who'd been displaced from a village right on the border with Lebanon told me, even here in Nahariya, every time she leaves the hotel where she stays, she plans the route to basically move from bomb shelter to bomb shelter. She talked about what it's like to live in this situation.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We don't know what is going to happen. We are waiting that something will happen so we can end it, OK? We want to go back to our homes.
SHERLOCK: It's really this sense of, like, fearful waiting. She doesn't exactly want an escalation in the war, but if that escalation brings a resolution, then she thinks it's necessary. She wouldn't give us her name because the situation is so fluid and delicate that she's worried about her safety, and then giving us her name feeds into that. And civilians on both side of the border here, Scott, you know, have been displaced. More than 60,000 people have on the Israeli side. And though it's less than on the Lebanese side, the death tolls from the rocket attacks here are lower than the deaths on the Lebanese side, it's still terrifying for civilians.
SIMON: And, Jane, of course, a lot of concern about the chances for a full-scale war in the region. Does that seem more likely now?
ARRAF: Well, until this week, despite the rhetoric, Israel, Iran and Lebanon were believed to be trying to limit those chances of all-out war, but these attacks seem to have changed that equation. They are impossible for Hezbollah not to respond to. Hassan Nasrallah, their leader, has made it clear that the only thing that will stop fighting at the border is an end to war in Gaza. And with Israeli officials saying the war is now in a new phase, that seems unlikely.
SIMON: NPR's Jane Arraf in Beirut, Ruth Sherlock in Tel Aviv. Thank you both very much for joining us.
ARRAF: Thank you.
SHERLOCK: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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