At least 20 people have been killed and 450 wounded in Lebanon in a new wave of blasts related to communication devices, the Ministry of Public Health says, a day after thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah detonated across the country.
The attacks, which were widely believed to be carried out by Israel against Hezbollah, have raised fears that the two sides’ simmering conflict could escalate into all-out war.
Speaking to Israeli soldiers on Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We are at the start of a new phase in the war. It requires courage, determination and perseverance.”
He made no mention of the explosions of electronic devices on Tuesday and Wednesday but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying, “The results are very impressive.”
Multiple explosions were reported across Lebanon on Wednesday with the state-run National News Agency saying pagers and “devices” exploded in Hezbollah strongholds in eastern and southern Beirut as well as in the eastern region of Bekaa, where three people were wounded.
Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV reported explosions in multiple locations, which it said were the result of walkie-talkies detonating.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon, witnessed two explosions.
“There was a car that exploded just behind us. At the same time, there was an explosion at another place [nearby],” he said. “I’m currently in the middle of the street. There are a lot of ambulances, chaos everywhere.”
Several blasts took place simultaneously, Hashem said, similar to the explosions on Tuesday.
“But this time, it was mostly walkie-talkies or radios [that exploded],” he said, adding that reports suggested that solar devices and some batteries in cars also detonated. The National News Agency reported that home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut.
In Wednesday’s attacks, several blasts were heard at a funeral in Beirut for three Hezbollah members and a child killed by exploding pagers the day before, according to journalists with The Associated Press news agency at the scene.
An AP photographer in the southern coastal city of Sidon saw a car and a mobile phone shop damaged after devices exploded inside of them. A girl was hurt in the south when a solar energy system blew up, the state news agency reported.
In Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said a blast was reported in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital city.
The new round of explosions took place a day after pagers exploded nearly simultaneously in locations across Lebanon, killing at least 12 people, including two children, and wounding about 2,800. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for Tuesday’s attacks.
Israel has not directly commented on the blasts.
The attacks have shaken the civilian population with a stream of bloodied people overwhelming hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds of Beirut. Health authorities have called on all available medics to report for duty.
Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s explosions took place after Israel announced the expansion of its war goals to include northern residents returning to their homes near the border with Lebanon.
Tens of thousands of people have left northern Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas-led attacks on October 7 in southern Israel, where more than 1,100 people were killed and about 250 were taken captive.
Israel has waged a brutal assault on the Gaza Strip since then, killing more than 41,000 people and reducing large swaths of the Palestinian territory to rubble.
Since October 8, Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire with Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border in support of Hamas.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah said Israel was “fully responsible for this criminal aggression” and reiterated it would avenge the latest attacks while saying it would continue its fight against Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza.
Cross-border exchanges with Israeli forces were “ongoing and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre”, Hezbollah said.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warned the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” on Wednesday was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war”.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called for “maximum restraint”.
“The secretary-general urges all concerned actors to exercise maximum restraint to avert any further escalation,” his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.
