LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It's a day of national mourning in Lebanon after the deadliest day of the current Israeli invasion there. More than 250 people were killed Wednesday, according to Lebanon's Civil Defense.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Israeli attacks hit densely populated residential areas. Israel said it was striking leaders of the armed group Hezbollah, although its targets were far from that group's traditional strongholds. Strikes even hit near the Corniche, which is Beirut's famous seaside promenade. We are following reports of more attacks today.
FADEL: NPR's Lauren Frayer is in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, and joins us now. Good morning, Lauren.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: What is the situation where you are today?
FRAYER: Well, church bells have tolled across Beirut on this national day of mourning even as warplanes still tear across the sky. People are still missing, still under the rubble. I heard more booms overnight. Israel says it hit another bridge in Southern Lebanon after that wave of attacks yesterday, in which Israel says it hit Beirut a hundred times in 10 minutes, killing the nephew of Hezbollah's leader. Hezbollah, for its part, held its fire yesterday. It says it viewed the ceasefire as including Lebanon, but today says it has fired rockets into northern Israel. And air raid sirens have gone off there.
FADEL: Now, the Israeli military often issues evacuation orders telling civilians to flee areas where it's targeting militants or groups. But I understand that didn't happen with these attacks.
FRAYER: Well, it did issue orders for Beirut's southern suburbs. But then it attacked central Beirut itself in attacks that the U.N. secretary-general, the International Committee for the Red Cross have all condemned. You know, more than a million people have been displaced already by this Israeli invasion. The capital has swelled with a lot of those people, and now they're in danger here. We spoke with Zaynab Ayn (ph). She's a 18-year-old college student from the south sheltering in Beirut. She stayed up late at night for that ceasefire announcement, sure it would mean attacks would stop and she'd return to her studies.
ZAYNAB AYN: I fell asleep hoping that I'm going to wake up and go back home. But I woke up and they were saying, no, there's no ceasefire at all - that Lebanon was not included, which was sad. But hopefully, Iran will do something about this.
FRAYER: She says, hopefully Iran will do something - you know, stick up for Lebanon. And that's what Iran says this closure of the Strait of Hormuz is about. It's Iran's response to these Israeli attacks against its proxy here in Lebanon - Hezbollah.
FADEL: And what effect is that having? A fifth of the world's oil gets shipped through there. So this affects gas prices almost everywhere, right?
FRAYER: Yeah. So oil is still at around $100 a barrel. That's about a third higher than before this war began. The U.S.-Iran ceasefire is supposed to sort of formalize a system of charging fees for ships to pass through that waterway. Some countries don't want that. You know, the British foreign secretary called today for the strait to go back to where it was before - a toll-free international waterway. But Iran wants - has control now and wants to keep that.
FADEL: And also, as we've been talking about, there's a meeting to work this out.
FRAYER: Yeah. That's in Pakistan. Vice President JD Vance is going to that. Iran has threatened to cancel those talks, though, because of these attacks on Lebanon. Vance said yesterday that Israel has offered to, quote, "check themselves a little bit in Lebanon" to make sure those talks are successful, so we'll see if that happens. But meanwhile, Iranian media today published a chart suggesting that Iran's Revolutionary Guard may have laid mines under that waterway. President Trump shared a statement on social media saying U.S. troops and warships will stay in the region until all of this is resolved. And he said if it isn't, quote, "then the shooting starts, bigger and better and stronger than anyone has ever seen before."
FADEL: That's NPR's Lauren Frayer in Beirut. Thank you for your reporting.
FRAYER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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