A giant battleship-grey projectile is seen plummeting towards residential buildings in a neighbourhood in southern Beirut.

Then in a matter of seconds, a multi-storey apartment block is completely flattened.

For bystanders, it would have been a blinding blur of loud bangs and huge plumes of smoke.

An Associated Press photographer managed to catch the missile moments before impact.

His images show it frozen in mid-flight before razing the structure.

"I heard the sound of the missile whistling, headed toward the building and then I started filming," photographer Bilal Hussein said.

The series of photos provide a rare glimpse into the use of one of the most powerful bombs in Israel's arsenal.

And a striking look at the speed, power and devastation of modern warfare.

Strike came 40 minutes after warning 

Tuesday's air strike came 40 minutes after Israel said it warned people to evacuate two buildings in the densely-populated neighbourhood in Ghobeiry, south of the Lebanese capital.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the buildings were near "interests and facilities" associated with the Hezbollah militant group.

The site was not far from where a spokesperson for Hezbollah had just briefed journalists.

Many people fled, but others, including a few journalists, remained. 

No deaths or injuries were reported. 

But the Lebanese government said on Tuesday at least 63 people were killed in separate Israeli strikes over the last day.

Israel's offensive in Lebanon over the past month has driven at least 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes and killed 2,530 people, according to Lebanese officials. 

Hezbollah has been shelling northern Israel since October 8, 2023 — a day after Hamas launched a terrorist attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. 

Israel's subsequent strikes on Gaza have claimed the lives of more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

Pictures capture exact moment of hit

Minutes before the strike brought down the building, there were two smaller strikes on it, in what Israel's military often refers to as a "knock on the roof" warning strike, according to AP journalists at the scene.

Hussein was already positioned near the buildings, saying he knew Israel often fired warning shots ahead of a larger strike.

Then "exactly eight minutes later" the missile that flattened the building came into sight, he said.

One picture showed the bomb arching through the air.

Another captured it a fragment of a second before it smashed through a lower-floor balcony.

In the images that followed, a cloud of smoke and debris billowed outward as the building collapsed.

What weapon was used?

The Israeli military declined to comment about the type of weapon used.

AP reported that an examination by independent arms researchers suggested the weapon was a guided bomb, also known as a smart bomb, launched from an Israeli jet.

The tail fin and nose sections indicate this was a 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) warhead fitted with an Israeli-made guidance kit known as SPICE, according to Richard Weir, a senior conflict, crisis and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Former US Army senior explosive ordnance disposal team member Trevor Ball also told CNN that the missile used in the strike appeared to be of a Spice 2000 bomb guidance kit.

SPICE — Smart, Precise-Impact and Cost-Effective — guidance systems are made by Israel’s government-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. 

They are attached to a standard unguided bomb to direct the weapon to its target, making it a "smart bomb".

The 2,000-pound version can be launched as far as 60km from its target.

Joseph Dempsey, a defence and military analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, agreed the photos indicated the weapon was a 2,000-pound SPICE bomb.

He said the guidance system was thought to rely on GPS and what were known as electro-optical guidance systems, which use cameras or sensors to zero in on the bomb's target.

The destructive nature of the weapon comes down to many factors, including the size of the warhead and the way it is fused.

Mr Weir said it was clearly a delayed action fuse. 

"It buried down into the ground [and] detonated, which has the effect of limiting the fragmentation and blast damage of this particular strike," Mr Weir said.

That explains why the destruction was limited almost entirely to the targeted building.

Where was the weapon made?

Analysts said it was difficult to determine where the bomb was made.

In 2019, Rafael and US defence contractor Lockheed Martin signed a deal to work together to build and sell SPICE guidance kits in the US.

At the time, the companies said production of more than 60 per cent of the SPICE system was spread across eight US states.

In October last year, the US State Department issued a letter approving the export of additional SPICE bomb assemblies to Israel.

That letter, first reported by The New York Times, notified Congress that Rafael USA, an American subsidiary of the Israeli defence company, was seeking the $US320 million ($480 million) shipment.

That request was an amendment to an earlier $US403 million license in 2020.

The explosive warhead was a basic bomb.

It was possibly a 2,000-pound MK-84 style explosive, where the nose and tail section have been swapped out for the guidance system.

Israel has US MK-84 bombs in its arsenal, but other countries also produce similar weapons.

Mr Weir said determining where the bomb part was produced would require recovering remnants of weapon to analyse the markings.

ABC/AP