More deaths, injuries as more devices explode across Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon
At least 14 people were killed and 450 more injured in Lebanon on Wednesday after walkie-talkies explode across Beirut and throughout the country.
Wednesday’s wave of explosions followed a similar attack on Tuesday which saw pagers used by Hazebollah terrorist operatives explode across the country and Syria killing at least 12 people and injuring thousands more.
Israel is yet to comment on allegations that it is behind the attacks.
However, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) stated Wednesday that fighter jets targeted and struck several buildings in southern Lebanon used by Hezbollah.
The fresh explosions involving more kinds of devices came after Israel said it was preparing to enter a “new phase of war” which involves a greater focus on the north near its border with Lebanon. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said the military’s “resources and forces” are being diverted away from Gaza to the north.
“We are at the onset of a new phase in the war, it requires courage, determination and perseverance from us,” Mr Gallant said without referencing the two consecutive days of handheld devices exploding across Lebanon.
In a hasty retaliation, Hazebollah launched more than 40 rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel, the IDF added.
Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to return displaced Israelis to their homes in the north after the IDF said it was ready to carry out the “next two stages” of its war plan near its border with Lebanon.
“I have said it before, we will return to the citizens of the north to their homes in security and that’s exactly what we are going to do,” the Israeli prime minister said in a short statement – his first since the Lebanon attacks.
The IDF has said Hezbollah should be ready to pay a “high price” as Israel prepares to enter a new phase of war.
The warning came before hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut’s southern suburbs a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers.
At least one of the blasts took place near a funeral organized by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country and wounded many of the group’s fighters.
The group, which was thrown briefly into disarray by the pager attacks, said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets, the first strike at its arch-foe since blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East war.
The hand-held radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time that the pagers were bought, said a security source.
Israel’s spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of sophisticated operations on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.
The death toll from Tuesday’s blasts rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday. Tuesday’s attack wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the militant group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for an independent investigation into the events surrounding exploding pagers.
A Taiwanese pager maker denied that it had produced the pager devices which exploded in an audacious attack that raised the prospect of a full-scale war between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.
Gold Apollo said the devices were made by under licence by a company called BAC, based in Hungary’s capital Budapest.
There was no immediate word on when Hezbollah had launched its latest rocket attack but normally the group announces such strikes shortly after carrying them out, suggesting it fired at the Israeli artillery positions on Wednesday.
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military declined to comment on the blasts. The two sides have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, fuelling fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could drag in the United States and Iran.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of pushing the Middle East to the brink of a regional war by orchestrating a dangerous escalation on many fronts.
“Hezbollah wants to avoid an all-out war. It still wants to avoid one. But given the scale, the impact on families, on civilians, there will be pressure for a stronger response,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, said in a statement it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and Israel should await a response to the pager “massacre” which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or dead.
One Hezbollah official said the detonation was the group’s “biggest security breach” in its history.
Footage from hospitals reviewed by Reuters showed men with various injuries, some to the face, some with missing fingers and gaping wounds at the hip where the pagers were likely worn.
The plot appears to have been many months in the making, several sources told Reuters. It followed a series of assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas commanders and leaders blamed on Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
