SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Lebanon is bracing for more upheaval after a week of unprecedented Israeli attacks, as well as counterattacks on Israel by the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah. Israeli airstrikes in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Friday killed two senior Hezbollah leaders, 14 fighters and more than 20 civilians, including children. And that's days after Israel's attacks on Hezbollah members' pagers and walkie-talkies. NPR's Jane Arraf joins us from Beirut. Welcome.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Thank you.
DETROW: I mean, what a week in Lebanon. Tell me what the mood is like there.
ARRAF: Yeah, it's been a dizzying few days here. In the southern suburbs, where an Israeli strike demolished a building on Friday, there have been two days of funerals.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in non-English language).
ARRAF: The latest just a few hours ago, the burial of the senior Hezbollah commander whom Israel says was the target of its Beirut airstrike. Hezbollah's undersecretary general, Naim Qassem, praised Ibrahim Akil as the founder of the Radwan Forces, the group's special operations unit. Qassem addressed the U.S. and its seemingly unconditional support for Israel in his address, which was broadcast live, including on Iranian state TV. This is what he says through an interpreter.
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NAIM QASSEM: (Through interpreter) This is a nation that cannot be defeated. But the United States, America, it is drowned. It is swamped from its head to toe in the aggression and the genocide with Israel.
ARRAF: And by nation, he means the Islamic world, a reference to support even far beyond the Middle East for the Palestinian cause.
DETROW: Yeah. Meanwhile, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said today that the string of attacks in the last week was meant to send a message. How do you think Hezbollah would interpret that message?
ARRAF: Qassem said after the pager attacks, they were actually in shock. Thousands of pagers exploded at the same time. And then the next day, walkie-talkies detonated, killing altogether more than 42 fighters and civilians and injuring about 3,500. But he said Hezbollah quickly rebounded and that the attacks failed to turn people against the group. He also said retaliatory attacks today into Israel were just a small part of the revenge Hezbollah was planning. And he said those Israeli attacks were creating the next generation of fighters.
DETROW: Well, let's talk more about those Hezbollah attacks on Israel. What effect have they had?
ARRAF: Well, it was a lot of strikes. Hezbollah fired about 150 rockets, missiles and launched explosive drones into Northern Israel today, including near the northern city of Haifa. Israeli forces said they intercepted most of them, and Israel said it attacked more than 200 targets in Lebanon the day before. Qassem, at the funeral, said fighting had entered a new stage of open-ended battle. And he repeated that fighting at the Israeli Lebanese border would stop only when a cease-fire in Gaza is reached.
DETROW: We've been talking a lot about Hezbollah. What about the rest of Lebanon? How is the rest of the country reacting to all of this?
ARRAF: Yeah, we have to remember that Lebanon has been undergoing economic and other crisises (ph) for years, even before this. Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said this is an extremely dangerous phase the country's in, and he's ordered security services to crack down, particularly on foreigners, to uncover a spy network that officials believed helped Israel implement these attacks. At the same time, though, that people in the southern suburbs are mourning the dead, others were setting off fireworks last night over the harbor in wedding celebrations.
DETROW: That's NPR is Jane Arraf in Beirut. Jane, thanks so much.
ARRAF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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