Hello and welcome to News Hour it's coming to you live from the BBC World Service

studios in Central London I'm Tim Franks and you join us as there may be very significant developments happening over the border between Israel and Lebanon.

We'll get to that in a moment but I just want to put this in some sort of context because

almost a year ago the Hamas massacre in Israel and Israel's massive military offensive in

Gaza, well that all began as a huge shock. In contrast

what is currently happening over Israel's northern border, its border with

Lebanon does feel like a much more signaled choreographed walk towards possible all-out war, a war between Israel

and the very powerful Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah Hezbollah, a war which were it to be unleashed and

fool could well be far more devastating even than the war in Gaza. What has

happened in Beirut in the southern Beirut suburbs within the last hour or so has been an

an airstrike on what the Israelis are saying was a major Hezbollah target according to the

Ministry of Public Health in Lebanon three people have been killed.

There have been pretty much daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel since last October.

This week you may recall Hezbollah communication devices were blown up in two days of

attacks which left thousands injured more than 30 dead.

Hezbollah though has been trying to show that it still poses a threat to Israel.

This was video shot in the

southern Lebanese town of Madraine, capturing the sound of rockets

thought to have been fired from Lebanon into Israel. Well, as I mentioned within the last hour or so there has been that.

Airstrike on the Dachia suburb of Beirut, killing three and injuring 17, according to the Lebanese

Ministry of Public Health.

Dr Matthew Leavitt is director of the Counterterrorism Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is a specialist on Hezbollah.

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