Israel destroyed an apartment building in southern Beirut in an air strike photographed in rare detail.
Residents and reporters gathered 200 metres away from an apartment complex after Israel gave warnings in Arabic about targeting “Hezbollah facilities”.
About 40 minutes after the warnings, Israel dropped what appears to be a 2,000-pound MK-84 bomb on the base of the eight-storey building.
Footage and images from the scene showed two bombs hitting one immediately after another, suggesting two missiles hit the building’s ground floor in Beirut’s Ghobeiry neighbourhood.
Israel is known to target the ground floor of apartment buildings, a tactic designed to bring the whole structure down in one effective blast.
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Israel claims Hezbollah hides among civilians, including basing operations out of residential blocks. The strike happened on the same day Israel alleged a hospital was hiding the base of the deceased Hezbollah leader.
The IDF’s Arabic spokesman issued evacuation warnings exactly 40 minutes before the building was brought down.
Avichay Adraee posted pictures online of two buildings highlighted in red on a map of the neighbourhood, telling residents to stay at least 500 metres away from the “Hezbollah facilities”.
The air strike came a day after a similar attack killed 18, including four children, without warning nearby Lebanon said.
Israel’s exact policy of early warnings is unclear.
The orders are always issued online in Arabic. The IDF sends text messages or makes phone calls to residents in the specific areas about to be targeted, and sometimes even distributes flyers to those without phones or internet.
NGOs and humanitarian organisations are also notified in advance, although the warning time varies, ranging from 10 minutes to several hours.
Ahead of Tuesday’s air strike, the order even forced Hezbollah to evacuate a press conference nearby.
Israel has also been known to use a controversial air strike technique known as “roof knocking” in Gaza. This involves detonating a small explosive above the roof of a target to signal to nearby civilians to get out of range. A second bomb is then dropped squarely on the target shortly afterwards.
Israel’s approach to air strikes in civilian areas has been harshly criticised since the start of the Gaza war. The UN concluded in June that attempts to “at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated”.
Israel is known to use several kinds of different munitions when attacking high-rise buildings, often depending on the target. If the goal is to assassinate an individual, the air force can use drones to target a specific floor or room inside a building.
But if the whole building is a target, the army will study the engineering and surroundings of a building to measure the exact type of munition and power needed to take it down, according to Israel Ziv, a retired IDF general.
“They hit the ground floor with a missile. It’s the only way to make the whole thing collapse. In the past they used to drop bigger bombs on the building itself, but even that doesn’t destroy it,” he told The Telegraph.
Footage taken in Gaza in August showed the same tactic being used by Israel as it struck an apartment building in the suburb of Sheikh Radwan.
Mr Ziv was shown the footage of the building collapsing in Beirut but declined to specify which missile was used by the IDF.
Earlier this month, The Guardian reported remnants of a Joint Direct Attack Munition (Jdam) was found in the rubble after an apartment building was hit in the central Beirut neighbourhood of Basta.
The Jdam are guidance kits that turn unguided “dumb bombs”, weighing up to 2,000lbs (900kg), into GPS-guided bombs.
