I find quite puzzling the over-the-top reaction of some people to the simple assertion I made in a tweet that people with whom I’ve spoken, and who are reliable, insist that they saw aircraft bombing the port. Are they right? I have no idea.

But when many people also state that they heard aircraft over Beirut minutes before the explosion, and when one of those people is my wife, who moved away from the window because of the sound, likely saving herself from major injury, or worse;

And when Hezbollah, inexplicably, rushes to declare that the explosions at the port had nothing to do with Israel (which really was a historical first, on par with Caligula naming his horse a senator), my first instinct is to be suspicious.

Israel had an incentive to deny involvement because of the death toll; Hezbollah had a motive to deny Israeli involvement because it didn’t want to be accused of hiding arms in civilian areas, particularly in a Christian-majority area, which could undermine its Christian allies.

Does that mean Israel was involved? No. But in light of the eyewitnesses, it is worth reexamining the official version. It’s not as if Israel did not warn that it would bomb Hezbollah’s missile arsenal in Lebanon. They’ve expressed that many times.

So my question is why the strong reaction to a tweet based on people’s testimony? If A says he saw B shot C, normal cops would interview A, not attack him. But when it’s journalists saying this from thousands of kilometers away, I wonder how they did their job.

And when the version they’re defending is one put out by a Lebanese government that is a monument to subterfuge and incompetence, I wonder more. Maybe this time the government is right, but until an independent investigation shows me that is the case, I will have my doubts.

And this has nothing to do with blaming Israel. The Israelis have killed more Lebanese than you can count. But I hope they had nothing to do here as I don’t want another Hezbollah-Israel war. But I do want to know if Hezbollah is placing weapons caches in my city.

And I do want to know if my country will now be the victim of a shadow war where the heaviest price will be paid by civilians, as the two protagonists lie for their reasons and Lebanon’s government feeds us nonsense. That’s really all that interests me.