The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after warning residents of three residential buildings in Beirut to evacuate because the terrorist organization had built facilities underneath them.
IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari issued a warning just before midnight local time on Friday, hours after the IDF dropped bunker-busting bombs on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, targeting Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Hagari said that while Nasrallah’s fate remained unknown, Israel would continue to attack Hezbollah targets. His full statement was as follows:
As part of the extensive aerial operation to degrade Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure and capabilities, we are preparing to conduct strikes on strategic assets that Hezbollah has hidden underground beneath three buildings in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut.
Over the years, Hezbollah has developed an anti-ship missile arsenal, supplied by Iran.
Hezbollah has both threatened and, in the past, carried out attacks on maritime global shipping routes.
Hezbollah has also carried out attacks on Israeli civilian and military shipping vessels.
During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Hezbollah fired an anti-ship missile that hit the INS Hanit, killing four soldiers. Another missile struck an Egyptian merchant ship, called M.V. Moonlight, sinking it.
Hassan Nasrallah himself has threatened critical strategic facilities of the State of Israel, both at sea and on land.
In recent days, we have exposed how Hezbollah hides its weapons in homes and villages across southern Lebanon and in the Beqaa Valley.
Now, we will reveal how they store strategic weapons under civilian buildings in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut.
In the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut, Hezbollah constructed three buildings with designated underground spaces for storing strategic weapons, with the buildings above acting as a shield.
Here you can see one of the buildings in the heart of Dahieh.
When entering and descending to the parking level, there is a storage facility for strategic weapons.
Hezbollah has stored these strategic weapons beneath civilian populations.
The way the missiles are stored in these buildings allows them to be moved and launched outside of the buildings within minutes.
This possesses a real and immediate threat to global shipping routes and Israel’s critical strategic infrastructure.
In the last hour, we have contacted the residents of the three buildings in the Dahieh—these residents are above and near Hezbollah’s strategic assets and must evacuate immediately for their safety and security.
Residents of the following buildings in the Hadath neighborhood —building complex “Al Salam”, “Laylaki”” neighborhood, building “Monir Shadid,” and in the “Elhadad” neighborhood, building “Sheit”—must move as far away from the buildings as possible before the strike.
In a short time, we will attack the weapons stored beneath the buildings. The explosion, because of the missiles, may damage the structures and could potentially cause them to collapse.
Hezbollah exploits and endangers Lebanese civilians, using them as a human shield for its weapons.
We will not allow such a threat to be directed at Israeli civilians, global shipping routes, and vital facilities, which any other sovereign state would never permit.
Following Hagari’s announcement, Israeli attacks were reported in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh, and in the southern coastal city of Tyre.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.