CNN
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The Israeli attack that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Friday evening likely used US-made 2,000-pound bombs, according to a review of footage covering the operation and its aftermath by CNN and Ammunition experts show.

A video released by the Israeli military on Saturday showed jets allegedly used to carry out the attack carrying at least 15 2,000-pound bombs, including the U.S.-made BLU-109, according to Trevor Ball, a former senior ordnance technician. Army who reviewed the footage for CNN.

The bombs, colloquially called “bunker busters” because of their ability to penetrate deep underground before exploding, were also equipped with U.S.-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) – a precision guidance kit that allows unguided or “dumb” Bombs are converted into “smart” munitions that can precisely hit a target – according to Ball. In one plane equipped with bombs, shown in the video taking off, Ball identified at least four as BLU-109s with JDAM equipment.

Other types of large bombs may have been used in the operation, Ball added, but only the BLU-109 can be seen in the footage. The ammunition contains 535 pounds of explosives, significantly less than MK84s, another type of 2,000-pound bomb commonly used by the Israeli military. “BLU-109s sacrifice explosive weight to penetrate targets better than an MK84,” Ball said.

Videos and images geolocated by CNN at the site of the attack in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, show a large, deep crater surrounded by debris from the destroyed buildings. A CNN analysis of video and satellite images confirmed that four multi-story apartment buildings were leveled in the attack.

Two senior Israeli defense officials told the New York Times that 80 bombs were used in the attack on Nasrallah. Ball told CNN that the number was plausible, but that it was difficult to determine based solely on available images of the crater. “It is possible that there were other similar craters that the rubble collapsed into and filled. It is also not known how deep and extensive the underground facilities were. “This makes it extremely difficult to reliably estimate the number of munitions used,” he said.

Justin Bronk, a senior air force and technology researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London who also analyzed footage for CNN, said that the Israeli Air Force planes were carrying JDAM guidance equipment and that the crater left after the attack stood in Consistent with the use of 2,000-pound BLU-109 bombs.

“(It) fits the impact profile and penetrating fuze settings and large warhead required to create such a crater,” Bronk said. He added that the combination of BLU-109 bomb and JDAM equipment “was what you would expect when attacking such a buried, hardened target.”

The Israeli military has not released any footage showing the moment the bombs were dropped. However, videos circulating on social media on Friday showed massive explosions in Dahiyeh, where the attack on Nasrallah’s underground headquarters was carried out. Bronk told CNN that the numerous plumes of smoke seen in one of the videos were consistent with multiple near-simultaneous impacts from 2,000-pound bombs, whose detonators were designed to explode underground.

Addressing reporters on Saturday, Brig. Gen. Amichai Levin, commander of Israel’s Hatzerim Air Base, said that “dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds with very high precision,” adding that this was “necessary to reach this deep underground meet”.

The Israeli military has repeatedly used 2,000-pound bombs during its deadly campaign in Gaza. Weapons and war experts blame the extensive use of such heavy ammunition for the enormous death toll.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and injured more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures from the health ministry there. In response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, Israel launched its ground offensive and air strikes on the Strip.

The use of 2,000-pound bombs, most of which are manufactured in the United States, can result in high-casualty events due, among other things, to the enormous magnitude of their impact. The weapon’s blast radius, or lethal fragmentation radius – an area where injury or death can occur around the target – is up to 365 meters (approximately 1,198 feet), or the equivalent of 58 football fields.

In May, the Biden administration said it had suspended delivery of the bombs to Israel over concerns about their possible use in the attack on Rafah and the risk of harm to civilians.

Israel’s attacks in Lebanon continued at a rapid pace over the weekend, with more than 100 people killed and more than 350 others injured in the country on Sunday. The Israeli military said it was attacking Hezbollah, including by attacking warplanes on about 45 targets near a village in southern Lebanon.

At least 12 locations in Beirut were attacked between Friday and early Monday morning, according to a CNN analysis. One attack destroyed a floor in a residential building next to the city’s Cola Crossing, a major transportation hub in central Beirut. This was the first time in nearly a year of conflict that a site within the capital’s borders was hit.