The success of Israel’s operation stands in sharp contrast to its misjudgment of Hamas’s intentions before 7 October

A hundred munitions – including, it is believed, US-made 2,000lb bombs – were used by the Israeli air force in Friday evening’s overwhelming air raid that killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an underground complex hidden in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh.

Nasrallah, who was careful to the point of paranoia about his security arrangements and only rarely appeared in public, would have given little notice of his plan to undertake the fateful trip to the meeting.

Casualties rising as assault on Hezbollah leaves war-weary nation apprehensive of more pain to come

For months, the staff at Rafik Hariri university hospital had been preparing for the worst. Nurses ran drills in parking garages, practising transferring patients from the wards to the bombproof concrete structures. A building was left empty on the hospital campus so that if mass bombing occurred, medics could bring their families with them and not worry about their safety.

On Friday night, the drills seemed to pay off. Dozens of bombs were dropped on Dahiya, the southern suburbs of Beirut, sending residents running to the safest place they could think of – the nearby hospital.

Residents of Lebanon’s capital flee their homes and seek shelter as the death toll from Israel’s airstrikes rises

Gunshots fired into the air, women wailing in the streets, the ever-present buzz of drones and the distant thud of Israeli airstrikes: this was the sound of mourning in Beirut on Saturday. Hassan Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for 32 years, was dead, killed in an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the day before.

For many in Lebanon, his killing had been unimaginable. But Israel’s war with Hezbollah had long surpassed what was previously thought possible. Pagers had exploded in hands, walkie-talkies blew up in belts and Israeli warplanes killed hundreds in half a day. The death of Nasrallah was one more blow to the Lebanese psyche, already struggling to grasp soaring death tolls and, for some, the loss of their home overnight.

Six confirmed dead and 91 hurt but other reports claim hundreds killed as sources close to Hezbollah say Hassan Nasrallah is alive

• Middle East crisis – latest news updates

Israel has launched its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, levelling a number of buildings in a southern suburb in an apparent attempt to kill Hezbollah’s leader and a key ally of Iran, Hassan Nasrallah.

Six loud explosions were heard across the Lebanese capital late on Friday afternoon, and vast plumes of smoke were visible from as far as Batroun, a city an hour’s drive away.