on capitol hill, senators negotiating a deal on the border as house speaker mike johnson and fellow republicans are set to visit the border this afternoon. we want to begin this hour with that breaking news out of iran. more than 100 people confirmed killed. iranian officials calling the explosions a terrorist incident. want to bring in now tehran bureau chief ali arouzi who is live for us on the ground in tehran. we spoke last hour, what updates are we getting this hour as to what may have taken place and who is behind it? reporter: hey, yasmin, so we know there were two explosions about 15 minutes apart from each other at 3:00 local. the death toll keeps rising. right now saying at least 103 people have been killed, and over 210 people have now been confirmed injured at that blast, went off near a cemetery in iran where that ceremony was being held to mark the death of soleimani in 2020 by a u.s. drone attack. state media saying there was one explosion and second one du
buried and they are chanting death to the usa and death to israel. so, clearly people have already made up their mind who was behind this attack before any official investigation has reported its findings. my gosh. a lot to dig through there. ali arouzi for us, thank you, appreciate it. from iran to israel. at any moment the head of the iranian-backed militant group hezbollah is set to give a televised speech marking qassem soleimani s death and it is closely being watched to see if he addresses the strike in beirut who killed the second in command and leader of the military wing on tuesday. he s the most senior leader of hamas to be killed since the october 7th attacks in israel. israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike, but nbc news learned that israel did not notify the u.s. in advance of the attack, but did inform washington as it was under way, according to two u.s. officials, u.s. defense official, and a person briefed
hamas action, that is what it wants to see happen because it embeds itself among civilians in order to win either way. israel doesn t strike, in order to spare civilians, then hamas wins because it isn t being responded to, and if israel does strike and civilians are killed, israel is blamed for having done so. it is heart breaking to see the images, it is also important to see it in context and realize it is part of hamas game to hold israelis and hostages to its agenda. 15% of israelis want prime minister netanyahu to stay in office. he wasn t popular before this war began because of his judicial reforms, some of which have been overturned by the supreme court two days ago. and he s not popular now. how long does he stay? at what point do they say you have to go, even during this war time? i think it is unlikely that
on the operation. with the strike taking place in lebanon, there are increased concerns that the war between israel and hamas could lead to escalations with hezbollah. want to bring in now from tel aviv matt bradley who has more on this. you were, for some time, in lebanon, and we were on the air together the last time, matt, nass r nasrula made an address. reporter: you know that when we last spoke there were a lot of expectations too. high sky expectations that he would use his speech and there were two speeches but the first one followed weeks of silence, unusual silence from the head of hezbollah as people throughout the world were wondering whether hezbollah was going to weigh in and fully bring itself into the war with israel. that was months ago. and hezbollah did not do that.
around soleimani s grave. by the way, that operation, i also did not agree with. we killed him on the ground, in iraq, with a u.s. drone strike. so, it may have been, you know, rewarding for somebody who had been a major agent of attack on u.s. interests, but on the ground in iraq, doesn t make much sense. it is interesting you say that. it is something i ve been thinking about. i ve done extensive reporting in iran and israel as well, and thinking about israel carrying out a domestic strike inside iran seems incredibly far fetched, knowing the consequences of doing something like that on a day like today, the commemoration of the killing of one of their kind of more revered generals. yeah. indeed. plus, the attack apparently didn t really target iranian senior officials. it got a crowd outside the cemetery. so i think that will not turn out to be mossad, though they may well get blamed for it, so