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CNN International: Israeli Official: Nasrallah Was Target Of Beirut Strikes; No Word On Fate Of Hezbollah Chief After Israeli Strikes On Lebanon. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired September 27, 2024 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:00:35]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It is 8:00 p.m. in London, 10:00 p.m. here in Tel Aviv. I'm Jim Sciutto. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM.

And let's get right to the news. There's lots of it.

We begin with breaking news in Beirut. Rescue workers have begun sifting through the rubble of massive Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon's capital city. You see the pictures there. The Lebanese government says, those strikes killed at least two injured, some 76. We expect those numbers to rise as this recovery effort gets underway and continues.

Israel says the strikes targeted the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. We do not know yet if he was struck among the dead or injured but let's take a listen to the moment that these massive strikes hit their targets.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

SCIUTTO: Just enormous. This is one of the most densely populated areas in Lebanon, we should note, this part of southern Beirut. The strikes leveled six buildings. The IDF says that Hezbollah's command headquarters was operating under those residential buildings. CNN has not independently verified that claim.

Notably, for such a significant escalation, a U.S. official tells me the following, quote: The United States had no advanced knowledge of an nothing to do with any IDF military action in Beirut today.

Our reporters are all across the story and covering what has happened and what may be next.

We begin with CNN's Nic Robertson, with me here in Tel Aviv, Ben Wedeman is in Beirut.

Nic, if I could begin with, you because Israel says Nasrallah was the target of these strikes what are they saying now as to whether they hit that target?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: They're in a mode right now of a battle damage assessment, of waiting to see what is happening, with images have been released of defense -- Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, sitting in a command and control center, waiting for information.

We've heard from General Herzi Halevi, the IDF chief of staff. He is -- he has said, we are ready for offensive or defensive operations. So the military is postured to respond to whatever comes next than the anticipation would be that in some way that Hezbollah will respond to the events of this evening in Beirut.

But at the moment, there is nothing to indicate. One way or another whether Hassan Nasrallah was killed, whether he was in the building, who may have been killed with him. Of course, that information would be expected to come soon as that battle damage assessment, which includes not only looking at what's happened on the ground, but also using other intelligence assets to review this scenario and also, of course, being aware of conversations within Hezbollah and what they have to say about the situation.

So it will be becoming clearer. But at the moment, we are not informed, Jim.

SCIUTTO: No question they're following very closely. Of course, Israeli penetration of Hezbollah, intelligence penetration appears to be quite formidable.

Ben Wedeman is in Beirut.

And, Ben, you witnessed the strikes. I'm sure you felt them given the size of them. What do we know about casualties at this point and the degree of destruction -- destruction there?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, we have just preliminary numbers from the Lebanese ministry of health. It says that two people were killed, 76 injured, but that's a very preliminary number. We understand it. Six buildings were killed in this bombing that perhaps they were using bunker buster bombs so the casualty figures are probably going to grow much higher at this point.

In fact, when the bombing happened, we were actually in south Lebanon and we drove quickly back. But as we drove by that part of town, what we saw was still allowed two hours later, a large plume of smoke rising from the bomb site.

Now, I've been trying to get in touch with Hezbollah contacts, calling them, messaging them.

[15:05:04]

We're not hearing back from them. So Hezbollah has been very quiet on the fate of Hassan Nasrallah, but certainly what we've seen going back to Tuesday of last week is that Lebanon and Hezbollah in particular has received one body blow after another. First, those pager blasts, followed by the walkie-talkie blast, and then a series of targeted strikes on senior commanders in Hezbollah in addition to, of course last Monday, shock and awe bombing campaign that saw well over 1,000 Israeli strikes focused mostly on south Lebanon, but also on the Bekaa valley.

So we're waiting as everybody here in Lebanon is waiting on tenterhooks to find out what happened to Hassan Nasrallah. The Iranian embassy here in Beirut has put out a statement saying that this strike has changed rules of the game and is vowing vengeance.

Hezbollah at this point is probably in quite a state of shock. Now, I'm just going to step aside, Jim.

We've had several ambulances arriving here at Rafik Hariri Hospital.

I spoke to a doctor about an hour ago. He said that the numbers they'd received is minimal, but we understand that there are so many people still buried under the rubble. Where this strike took happen is a very, very crowded part of town, densely he packed with people, not just Lebanese, but also Palestinian refugees, as well as Syrian migrants. So we do expect the death toll rise and rise again -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, given -- given the level of the destruction there, the size of the munitions used, reasonable to assume that many more did not get out.

Ben Wedeman in Beirut, Nic Robertson here in Tel Aviv with me. Please standby.

Joining me now is Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus. He's a former spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Good to have you here.

JONATHAN CONRICUS, SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Good evening.

SCIUTTO: But first question, most direct is there any indication at this point to your knowledge that Nasrallah was killed or injured in the strike.

CONRICUS: There's indication based on intel on the ground that he was most likely there, and those indication that other senior Hezbollah military commanders and military personnel, Ali Karaki, was perhaps also there. Israelis are now trying to collect intelligence from various sources in order to establish that, but I would say that there's good probability that he was there. Not yet confirmed that he was indeed eliminated.

But Israelis are listening very, very closely to what Hezbollah is saying, not in the media, because they're not speaking in the media, but what they're saying amongst themselves.

SCIUTTO: And we should be clear that Israel's apparent penetration of Hezbollah seems to be formidable, given what we -- including what we saw in these series of attacks more recently, knowing the locations of leaders when they struck.

CONRICUS: Yeah, I think Ben gave a very good rundown of the latest events of the last two weeks, which in military terms have been quite formidable, the strikes that Israel has delivered against Hezbollah indicate many years of work preparing, collecting intelligence, and then developing the tools needed to actually use them. And what really is amazing is when you compare how the IDF has been dealing with Hamas, how difficult it has been to get the senior leaders get the commanders, and how long it has taken as opposed to once the IDF was given the guidance from the government, go get the senior leadership in Lebanon, obviously, lots of preparation before much higher readiness and when go-time came, so far good results.

SCIUTTO: So this is, of course, the latest in a series of strikes. You had the -- you had other strikes targeting senior Hezbollah leadership. You had this massive attack on pagers that struck, killed some but, but injured perhaps thousands of Hezbollah fighters. And then you've had these series of airstrikes in southern Lebanon, going right up to Beirut in recent days.

Is Israel laying the groundwork for war with Hezbollah and is a ground invasion likely to follow what we've seen so far?

CONRICUS: If Hezbollah and the Iranians get the message and de- escalate and uncoupled what's happening in Lebanon from what's been going on in Gaza. And if they make the choice for the future of Lebanon and not to continue the road of war with Gaza, then I don't think Israel has any appetite or interest to open up a second front in terms of ground operations. And now really is decision time for Tehran, and what's left of Hezbollah's leadership, which path they want to take.

[15:10:04]

Every day that goes by, Israel indicates that there's more to come. There are more capabilities and there are more tactical military surprises that they are able to leverage against Hezbollah. But I think that ultimately what Israel is looking for is currently in the coming months to allow Israeli civilians to go back to their homes and to do so with relative security and safety.

SCIUTTO: But if negotiation is the goal and, of course, there was this U.S.-led effort for a 21-day ceasefire still underway when the strike happened here, who is there to negotiate with if Israel is going after senior leadership right up to Nasrallah, who would Israel be negotiating a path to peace as it were?

CONRICUS: Path to peace is a big word, but --

SCIUTTO: Or at least a path to ceasefire.

CONRICUS: Path to ceasefire and for civilians to be able to return to their homes, which is what Israel is looking for. I think negotiation is the ultimate aim of these negotiations, or to Tehran, decisions are made in Beirut and Hezbollah used to have or has certain level of agency.

But at the end of the day, the cardinal decisions are made in Tehran. And this action that Israel just did puts the ball squarely in the Iranian court and they now have to decide how will they respond? Will they go all in even though the current situation is not very favorable for Hezbollah in terms of leadership, morale, et cetera? Do they go all in and compare their efforts to what Israel has done, or do they decide to de-escalate?

What Israel has been adamant about is that it must be cut, the relationship between Lebanon and Gaza has no logical standing. It should be severed and that what Israel wants to do is to return its people home. This isn't about taking the Litani or having coffee in Beirut. This is about allowing Israelis to go back to their homes.

SCIUTTO: Before we go, Israel must be calculating what is the most likely response from Hezbollah and perhaps Iran to this attack? Do you expect a massive attack, a massive retaliation from Hezbollah or Iran or perhaps both?

CONRICUS: I think that the Iranians are so calculated and strategic and discipline that they will in this time as well not take the opportunity and they will wait it out and not engaged directly with Israel, mostly in fear of Israeli retaliation to their national assets. I think that Hezbollah cannot let an attack like this go unanswered. And I think that they will use large and lethal objectives and they will fire at central cities in Israel. I think that's pretty much a given once they get out of the rubble and get their command and control back into working condition, if and when they do that.

And I think we should expect at least a few days of escalation, but then ultimately, what does Iran want? Do they want the path of escalation or will they be willing to say, okay, we've had a good year of bleeding, Israel, and fighting against Israel will now regroup behind other lines and perhaps that the dust settle, Israelis will return to their homes. It's in their court now.

SCIUTTO: We'll see. Jonathan Conricus, thanks so much for sharing your point of view. Appreciate it.

CONRICUS: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: Joining me now is Rami Khouri. He's distinguished public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut.

Mr. Khouri, thanks so much for taking the time.

RAMI KHOURI, DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC POLICY FELLOW, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN BEIRUT: You bet.

SCIUTTO: First of all, describe to me right now the feeling in Lebanon, this is as we were just describing there, the latest in a series of quite significant attacks by Israel on Hezbollah leadership, on missile in placements and, of course, this strike now targeting the very leader of Hezbollah. Does Lebanon believe that Israel is at war with Hezbollah?

KHOURI: Of course. Israel's at war with Hezbollah. It's been at war with Hezbollah for about 25 years, and it has repeatedly tried to use its really significant military strength and intelligence capabilities which are really the American, Israeli, British capabilities all combined into one, and that has done in the last 25 years has increased the strength of Hezbollah, its tactical and strategic capabilities, its communications, its aerial power, its missiles, its popular support.

All of these have been strengthened considerably in the last 20, 25 years, as have the capabilities of Israel, which we see every day in Gaza and Lebanon, with a tremendous support of the United States, but the way that Israel has waged war against Hezbollah and Hamas, you can't really separate the two much as Israeli would like to do that. The way it has waged war, has only brought about greater isolation for Israel internationally, which we saw today at the U.N. when Netanyahu spoken, three quarters of the delegates left.

[15:15:04]

There's -- the International Criminal Court has warrants for Netanyahu. The International Court of Justice says it's doing the genocide.

So Israel's position is becoming dangerously similar to what South Africa, apartheid South Africa was 2030 years ago. And the war, the no-war, the intermittent war, whatever we call it between Israel and Hezbollah, it's been going on for a long time. I've lived through several of the wars and they don't achieve anything other than make you feel that if you're Israeli, it makes you feel that you have all this military muscle and you use it, you kill a lot of people and Gaza is the epitome of this.

But it's now happening on a large scale in Lebanon, but it doesn't resolve fundamental conflict that only makes it worse for both sides. So I think this is the real question that we have --

SCIUTTO: Listen -- understood, I mean, of course, I suppose the question is, is it full-scale war and does it include a ground component. And to your point, of course, Israel had a long occupation of Lebanon in the '80s and '90s, it had the war in 2006, which I covered here as well with enormous casualties on both sides, the Israeli side as well.

But do you see Israel following these attacks with a large-scale ground invasion and perhaps occupation of parts of Lebanon.

KHOURI: Probably an invasion of some sort. I don't think a large scale one or an occupation because they tried that. It didn't work. They had to scamper out, flee in the middle of the night.

The ability and desire of the people in Lebanon, as in Gaza, as anywhere that people are occupied, their ability to resist occupation is enormous. And this is what the Israelis have learned in Palestine and in south Lebanon. So no, I don't think a large occupation underground, they might send them I think commando units with air backup to attack specific sites.

What we've learned now, which is different from 2006 is the Israeli intelligence has obviously with American and British assistance has generated a lot more information about Hezbollah's facilities, their ability to target leaders in their home and killed some of them. Hezbollah presumably has learned these lessons and it will take precautionary measures to stop that.

What we haven't seen are Hezbollah's capabilities. We know they have rockets that can reach Tel Aviv. There has been rockets launched to Tel Aviv from Yemen. The Iraqis today, one of the Iraqi militias close to Iran and Hezbollah said they're going to launch rockets against northern Israel. So, this is -- Israel really has to see the total arena in which it doing battle different Arab groups with support from other Arab groups, and trying to find a political resolution that would stop this terrible cycle which everybody and makes Israel today the most dangerous place in the world for a Jewish person.

SCIUTTO: The -- of course, U.S. forces have been the target of some of the Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria prior, as you know, I wonder what your view is of us influence or perhaps lack of influence over Israel right now, because, of course, this massive attack takes place in the midst of what were U.S.-led efforts to bring about a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Hard to see how that -- those ceasefire efforts continue.

Has the U.S. lost its influence over the Israeli prime minister?

KHOURI: What we see today and what we saw in 20, 30 years ago with the Begin and Rabin and others who are head of the government and Israel is quite a difference. The present government, both because of the personality of Netanyahu and the makeup of this very right-wing fascist militant government today, they pretty much disregard what the U.S. says.

There has been several examples of this in Gaza. And we're seeing it now in Lebanon. Israel disregards international law. It disregards the advice of its closest military and political ally, which is the United States. It regards any norm of civilized human behavior, in the process of saying it is defending the people of Israel.

So, defending your own people as an understandable goal, but doing it with such savagery and disregard for the rest of the people of the world, and the norms that they've established is really quite unusual and its not something that the U.S. or the world is going to accept just sitting down and watching. And by the way, I wouldn't -- I think it's not correct to call anybody who has a close relationship with Iran, Iran's proxies.

[15:20:08]

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel is close and so is the relationship between Hezbollah and Hamas and so with Iran. They're very close allies. They cooperate on military political, and strategic issues, but I wouldn't call them proxies.

This is Israeli propaganda which has picked up very quickly in the United States.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, I mean, we can't deny that Iran certainly supplies enormous amount of weaponry, for instance, to Hezbollah.

I wonder what your view is of Iran's response --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: -- has held back. Well, I'm not looking to compare who supports who more militarily, they certainly support each other militarily. Iran, Hezbollah, and the U.S. to Israel, but I am curious what your reading is of Iran's reaction to this. Do you see Iran retaliating directly against Israel for this strike?

KHOURI: Perhaps. We don't know what they're doing right now in terms of helping Hezbollah or their other allies in the region, their partners. They will want to avoid an all-out war with Israel because they know that they do not have the technical and military and reconnaissance and backup naval forces that Israel has with the United States supporting it.

So that I think Iran will want to avoid an all out war. But what they'll do is provide as much supplies, logistics, intelligence, whatever they can offer to their allies around the region. And one which I would expect, I usually don't get involved in speculation, but one thing I think is logical for Iran to do is to coordinate with all of the members of what they call the axis of resistance and do a coordinated attack against Israel. That's very likely to happen.

And this is something that Israelis --

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

KHOURI: -- should be worried about, that Israel and the U.S. are now fighting simultaneously five or six parties in the region, Iran and Arab parties.

SCIUTTO: That is certainly -- there's certainly a fear here of a multi-front war, at the same time, Rami Khouri, thanks so much for sharing your point of view.

KHOURI: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: After the break, more on our top story, a massive Israeli airstrike in Beirut. How will the Biden administration respond now? We're going to be live from the White House. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:49]

SCIUTTO: We will return now to scenes from Beirut as rescue workers continue to search for survivors, and what is just a massive blast zone. It's now been four hours since Israel launched that strike you're seeing there. It says it was targeting the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. A senior Israeli official says it is too early to say whether the strike killed or injured the Hezbollah leader.

The numbers of casualties at this point, and these are early at least two dead, 76 injured, that number expected to rise significantly based simply on the size of that explosion, and what we're seeing in the aftermath there. President Biden, on the tarmac in Dover, Delaware, told reporters the United States had no knowledge of and did not participate in this operation. U.S. officials have said Israel only notified the U.S. after the operation was already underway, and Israel had its jets in the air.

CNN's MJ Lee joins me now from the White House.

MJ, Netanyahu, of course, is carrying out this attack in the midst of ongoing U.S.-led ceasefire negotiations. It strikes me when we look at the statements from U.S. officials, from the president and from others that it is deliberately attempting to put distance between itself and this Israeli attack.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think there are two things that we are seeing U.S. officials here really trying to emphasize in the aftermath of the strikes in Beirut, one is, of course, that the U.S. had no involvement in any of this whatsoever, as you just noted, the president directly hold reporters this and the other is on the question of whether the U.S. got a heads up. The president himself said that technically there wasn't a heads up, but what we had reported earlier today was that the U.S. did get a heads- up moments before the strikes actually happened. And in fact, what a U.S. official told me was that the heads-up was given essentially after the military operation was already underway, and that Israel had planes already sort of up in the air.

So, all of this was already underway, and I think what the president clearly meant was that the specifics of this operation was not something that the U.S. would have been made aware of ahead of time. Now, as we are obviously waiting to learn the answer to the big question of whether the target, the main target of these strikes had been taken out, this is Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, of course, we are sort of waiting to find out what all of this will eventually mean for what had already been escalating, tensions hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah across the Lebanon border.

I mean, you mentioned yourself, this is only coming just really days after the U.S. tried to put forward this proposal that was put together by the U.S. and other nations to put in place a 21-day ceasefire. That was already looking like it was not really headed anywhere, at least in the immediate aftermath of that announcement, when the prime minister, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came out and basically threw cold water on it.

So I think that is really the space to watch is how bad is the damage? Was Nasrallah actually taken out and then what does that actually pretend in terms of the ceasefire efforts that had been really well underway here in the U.S.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

This is the second ceasefire effort, one in Gaza for a ceasefire and a hostage release deal. And this other ceasefire in the northern border that the U.S. is invested an enormous amount of diplomatic capital in getting across the finish line. And I've heard from U.S. officials and some of this has been in the public comment frustration with Israel throwing up roadblocks to those agreements. And I wonder what is, what is the White House losing patience with the Israeli leader at this point?

LEE: Yeah, I think, Jim, frustration is an understatement at this point. Our reporting just that U.S. officials actually were furious when this latest ceasefire proposal in Lebanon came out.

[15:30:03]

They fully expected and only put off that announcement really because they fully expected that the Israeli side would come out soon thereafter, an accepted. So to see the prime minister come out in public basically say, yeah, I have no intention of doing that right now. That really angered the U.S. officials.

You can call that a disconnect. You can call that a miscommunication, but as you rightly note, not the first time that the U.S. -- U.S. officials were left looking like they had sort of gotten ahead of their skis. We have seen this time and time again with the Gaza ceasefire attempts.

It's been months now since U.S. officials have really poured everything into trying to get something done, there have been so many moments where the president himself had come out and basically said, look, I feel like we are on the verge of something only to have the Israelis led by the prime minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu say this is just not going to happen, whatever President Biden might be saying that is not the reality.

So I think now we have two versions of this. The ceasefire attempts in Gaza, which obviously is completely stalled. And then these ceasefire attempts across the Lebanon border that I think is now completely up in the air, given these images that we are showing on the screen right now.

SCIUTTO: No question, up in smoke, one might say.

MJ Lee at the White House, thanks so much.

Just after the break, more on our top story, this is massive Israeli airstrike on Beirut Israel now attempting to determine whether the target Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the strike.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:01]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back, for more on Israel's strike on Beirut, I want to bring in Josh Rogin, columnist for "The Washington Post".

Josh, thanks for taking the time.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Great to be with you. SCIUTTO: As you know, this strike took place in the midst of a U.S.- led effort to broker a ceasefire on the northern border between Israel and Hezbollah, a 21-day ceasefire and yet Netanyahu gives quite a defiant address at the United Nations and then gives the okay for this massive strike in Beirut, targeting the Hezbollah leader. Does that kill in effect those ceasefire negotiations?

ROGIN: Well, Jim, not only does it at least pause those ceasefire negotiations for the foreseeable future. I think what has happened here is that the ability to negotiate such deals, the trust that's required between the United States and European and Middle East countries, and the Israeli government has been severely diminished because as you well know, U.S. officials spent days in New York at the United Nations General Assembly negotiating this ceasefire and were told by their Israeli counterparts, at least according to U.S. officials, that the Israelis were on board.

And on Thursday -- they announced the ceasefire, 21-day ceasefire on Wednesday, and then on Thursday, Netanyahu contradicted that, and the only explanation that we heard from National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was that they officials told them something different than what the prime minister told them.

So not only is the ceasefire, at least paused, if not dead, I don't see the administration going back to those negotiations soon without some explanation as to why the Israelis are not speaking with one voice on this issue.

SCIUTTO: As I mentioned, Netanyahu was speaking at the U.N. just a few hours ago. Let me play part of that address and I want to get your thoughts on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran, if you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place -- there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach and that's true of the entire Middle East.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: You saw there that the Israel -- the Iranian delegation had left and we should note that a large portion of the delegates walked out in protest of the Israeli prime ministers speech there.

There is a view in this country that Iran will hold its fire, that it doesn't want a war with Israel and perhaps might worry that however, it responded could be -- could be neutralized by Israeli defenses or might bring on it a broader Israeli attack. Is that a widely shared view?

And in your view, does that underestimate the risks of a massive Iranian retaliation for this strike?

ROGIN: Yeah, Jim, I think what we've seen for the last 12 months is that the Iranian government has been very careful in responding to attacks proportionally. In other words, when their proxies are hit, the proxies strike back. When Iranian officials are hit, Iranian government strikes back, and then after a series of retaliation and re-retaliation, the Iranian government is showing a willingness to stop.

So that's the pattern -- I think that's -- what people will hope will happen again, that there'll be some retaliation, maybe a re- retaliation, and then it'll stop. The problem is, the stakes are getting higher. The attacks are getting wider. And Hezbollah has its own capabilities and its own abilities to wreak havoc and retaliating ways the Iranians might not be willing to.

So we can hope that this will be a limited escalation, but it seems that each time we go through this, the stakes get higher, the dangerous get higher, the risks and higher the ability to manage the fallout gets more difficult.

SCIUTTO: In both those ceasefire efforts led by the U.S. in Gaza, a ceasefire and hostage release deal and this latest effort regarding Hezbollah and Israel, Netanyahu seems to be defying U.S. pressure to move those efforts forward here, what is the state of the relationship one between Netanyahu and Biden at this point, is it safe to say its broken or that he views Biden as a lame duck and two, how does that affect more broadly the relationship between the U.S. and Israel?

ROGIN: Right. They're inseparable because its obvious to everyone that the United States government and the Israeli government are not on the same page. At the same time, the United States is the ones supporting this effort by Israel, especially when the weapons.

[15:40:04]

So it's not a matter of Netanyahu ignoring the pressure alone, it's a matter of there not being enough pressure to change his calculus. And you're right, he's calculated that Biden is a lame duck and that he won't bring more pressure and that calculation seems to be correct. So at least until the election, depending on who wins, Netanyahu feels he has a free hand and I think that's what we're seeing right now on the ground in Lebanon.

SCIUTTO: Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have claimed that they use as great care as they can to avoid civilian casualties. They have claimed to be carrying out the -- an episode of urban warfare that's the safest ever by any military. That of course question by many on the ground hearing given by many Israelis.

We see a strike like this, apparently using bunker buster bombs, flattening some six buildings. And I know the Israeli position is that Hezbollah was using any civilians in that area as human shields. But can this be described as a precision strike?

ROGIN: You know, when you target a major military command, they are often in the middle of cities. This is not like striking a secret base or a hotel room or something like that. This is a public facility that encompasses a huge amount of territory in the middle of a city. So in that sense civilian casualties are baked into the cake and its not exactly human shields, it's just a big compound in the middle of a big city.

Now overall, I think there's a ton of evidence that Israel has not been take more care than any other army to protect against civilian casualties especially in Gaza. But for this particular strike, it seems that they hit it a military compound which is in the middle of the city and we'll have to wait to see how many innocent civilians were caught up in it and hopefully not that many, hopefully, hopefully none. But that's of course impossible to say at this point.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, looking at the images there just the scale is such that it's hard to imagine many in those buildings escaped unscathed.

Josh Rogin in Washington, thanks so much.

And just after the break, we continue our coverage of this strike, and what it might mean for region already it seems on the brink of wider war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:45:39]

SCIUTTO: Continuing our breaking news coverage of Israel's massive airstrikes on Beirut, targeting the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, the Iranian embassy in Beirut said the strike, quote, changes the rules of the game and warned as well that Israel would be, quote, punish.

Ali Vaez is an expert on Iran, the director of the Iran project at the International crisis group and he joins me now.

Ali, what is your view on how Iran responds to this attack? And do you see that Tehran is likely to retaliate against Israel?

ALI VAEZ, DIRECTOR, IRAN PROJECT INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: It depends to a certain extent, how successful this attack that has been in taking out the leader of Hezbollah, but I also remind you that it's not the first time Israel killed a Hezbollah leader. It did so in 1992, killing former leader Mousavi, who was replaced in 24 hours by Hassan Nasrallah.

And, of course, this will be a major setback for Iran for Hezbollah, if Nasrallah is indeed killed. But at the end of the day, the Iranians do not want to allow Israel, which is the much stronger military power here, to dictate the course of events, and to decide on the degree and level of escalation for the Iranians, because they believe that Israel has a relatively open hand in the next six weeks in the run-up to the U.S. elections, and they want to be careful not to fall into an Israeli trap.

SCIUTTO: An Israel trap, how? In terms of do you think justifying or giving Israel some justification to attack Iran directly?

VAEZ: Correct, but more importantly, to draw the United States into a direct confrontation with Iran. So imagine a scenario in which either his hold on responds in a way that justifies expanding the conflict, or Iran interferes directly, which I think it's still quite unlikely. Iran has always stood behind Hezbollah, not with it, or in front of it, when it has confronted Israel.

But in a scenario that there is justification for expanding the war, then it's very easy to imagine that both Iran and the United States would he pulled into it. And that is precisely what Iran wants to avoid in the course of the next six weeks.

SCIUTTO: I just wonder what the state of U.S. influence over the Israeli leader is right now. We've talked about this extensively earlier in this hour here, the view from the U.S. side is that Israel at least did not sufficiently of invest in U.S.-led ceasefire efforts in Gaza, and now with Lebanon, but may very well have stood in the way of those efforts here. And U.S. leaders have been loath to allow a broader war to escalate in the region. Has the U.S. lost its ability to influence Netanyahu's decisions, at least until the election?

VAEZ: That appears to be the case, Jim, unfortunately, I think the Biden administration obviously could not succeed in getting what it wanted in Gaza, which was the season its fire over, over the course of the past few months, but at least its could take credit for preventing further expansion of the conflict. But now that we're very close to that prospect, its really appears that its a case of complete failure of us policy in influencing one of his closest allies who depend on U.S. material support for being able to continue the war in Gaza and to also expand it.

And the risk of regional conflagration is now higher than ever in a way that it threatens American lives. There are U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria who could be once again targeted by Iranian backed allies and again, the United States might once again be dragged into another dangerous and devastating war in the Middle East, which simply would have no winners

SCIUTTO: And there are a lot of U.S. forces that have been sent to the region in recent weeks as months on warships, carrier groups, submarines in and around this area.

Before we go, when you look at Hezbollah right now, its lost -- possibly lost its leader, it's lost several other leaders.

[15:50:10]

It had this massive attack via pagers that at least destroyed its communications system and it's lost a lot of weapons in Israeli airstrikes.

Is Hezbollah -- Hezbollah now a weakened force?

VAEZ: It certainly is, but it's not a depleted force. And even what it has is still extremely dangerous and poses lots of danger to Israel. This is why Israel has not invaded despite the fact that Hezbollah is in such a weakened position.

But eventually, Jim, this is really important to understand that even if Israel manages to do what it has done to Hamas, to Hezbollah, which is two completely neutralize its ability to mount a serious military threats to Israel, which again, were far from that point it appears, with all the setbacks considered, but if that happens, then I believe is real creates a bigger problem for itself, because by diminishing Iran's regional deterrence, Israel would automatically push Iran towards the ultimate deterrence which are nuclear weapons.

And remember that Iran is now just the days -- just days distance from being able to have enough highly enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon and can have an arsenal of nuclear material in the course of the month.

SCIUTTO: It's great point about the danger of proliferation in this region.

Ali Vaez, thanks so much.

We were showing just a short time ago there live pictures of the aftermath of that strike in Beirut and you just see the extent of it.

We'll continue to follow details coming in from Beirut. We'll be back -- right back with more.

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SCIUTTO: We're still following developments out of Lebanon.

Our Ben Wedeman is in Beirut.

And, Ben, I know those early casualty figures were quite low based on the level of destruction we see at the blast site. Do you have any updates on casualty figures?

WEDEMAN: No, no updates at this point, Jim, the last they were, two dead, 76 wounded. But here at this hospital though, hospital in Beirut, the Rafik Hariri Hospital, we've seen about 10 ambulances coming and we understand just from the chatter behind and does that one of those people who arrived may be dead at this point.

[15:55:06]

But really we expect the death toll to climb when you consider the number of buildings that were hit and the kind of buildings that were hit. And certainly everybody's bracing themselves for the possibility that the news comes out that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has been killed.

And as a result the United Kingdom has announced that it's laying on additional flights for UK nationals who might want to leave the country soon as possible as they have been advised by the government, we understand that additional security has been put out on outside the U.S. embassy, which is north of Beirut. And generally the situation in Beirut is very, very tense at the moment, as we see, perhaps the death toll is going to continue to rise dramatically.

And as I stress if the news comes out that Hassan Nasrallah is indeed dead, this town will become very tense indeed -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: No question. I'm sure already tense at this moment. Ben Wedeman, thanks so much.

And thanks so much to all of you for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto reporting live from Tel Aviv. We want to continue to follow developments here.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.