Closed-circuit television video has emerged offering a new, very up-close and personal view of the large-scale and highly-coordinated Israeli strike on Hezbollah’s command bunker in Dahieh, a southern Beirut suburb and stronghold of the militant organization, on Sept. 27, 2024. GBU-31/B Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs with BLU-109/B bunker-busting warheads were the primary weapon used for this attack that killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as other top officials. It has been reported that dozens of civilians were killed and hundreds more were wounded in the attack.
The decapitation strike aimed at the large bunker buried beneath a residential area was one of the key operations that sent the Iranian-backed militant group far off kilter, allowing for Israel’s air and ground operations to have a far greater effect than they would have otherwise while limiting Hezbollah’s ability to respond in kind. The pager and walkie-talkie sabotage operation that preceded this strike was another.
Hezbollah remains heavily degraded today with the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, a key ally outside of Tehran, being another massive blow that came months later.
The video below shows what appears to be a normal day in Dahieh, with people moving about, including two motorcyclists that are shown in-frame. Then the bunker busters arrive. One is seen burrowing deep through the concrete roadway, narrowly missing one of the motorcyclists, followed by a massive subterranean explosion that ‘lifts’ the entire surrounding area. This is exactly the effect of a bunker buster like the BLU-109. The bomb’s tough casing allows it to penetrate deep underground with its delayed fuzing detonating the warhead at a predetermined depth or even level of a reinforced compound.
The strikes that killed Nasrallah were the result of decades of Israeli intelligence efforts to infiltrate Hezbollah and being able to learn the movements of its reclusive leader, according to multiple subsequent reports. Israel’s unprecedented sowing of pagers and other electronics containing small explosive charges into Hezbollah’s supply chains had already underscored its deep penetration into the group.
Israel’s strike is known to have involved the use of many GBU-31/Bs with BLU-109/B warheads delivered by at least eight F-15Is. Pre-strike imagery of the F-15s shows eight of them loaded to the brim with seven BLU-109/B-equipped JDAMs each, for a total of 56 bombs for the strike. Other reports put the number at more than 80 bombs.
It’s unclear whether or not Israel has received any BLU-116/Bs, a 2,000-pound-class penetrator featuring various improvements over the BLU-109/B, including an advanced smart fuze and the ability to punch through nearly 12 feet of reinforced concrete. The development of another 2,000-pound-class penetrator, the BLU-137/B, as a replacement for the BLU-109/B also began at least a decade ago, but to what extent that weapon is even in U.S. military service currently is not clear. Just today, the U.S. government approved the potential sale to Israel of additional JDAM kits specifically for use with the BLU-109/B, as well as precision-guided bombs and related components.
Video taken of the Israeli strike from afar shows highly precise targeteering that aimed to defeat the bunker system totally in one barrage. Images that emerged after the strike show giant craters and other impact areas spaced to provide continuous effects across a subterranean area. Different fuzing could have been employed to take out multiple levels of the complex and/or to ensure areas where the depth of the target wasn’t known still resulted in the desired level of destruction. Layering in multiple BLU-109/Bs atop each other, allowing them to ‘dig’ deeper than they could if used in a singular manner, is also likely to have been used as there are reports that the bunker was located as deep as 60 feet below the surface.
Regardless, the video is perhaps the most up-close view we have seen of the real-world effects of these weapons and their ability to reliably drill down through the soil and concrete to reach their intended target.
Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com