Israel struck targets along Lebanon’s southern border on Thursday as the leader of the Hizbullah militant group said the Jewish state had crossed “all red lines” with this week’s mass detonations of communication devices.
Hizbullah has blamed the explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies across Lebanon, which killed 32 people and injured thousands, on Israel. Many of the devices belonged to members of the militant group, with the attacks dealing a stinging blow to Hizbullah and raising fears of a full-blown war.
“There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a major security and military blow that is unprecedented in the history of the resistance and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon,” Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
Mr Nasrallah said: “On Tuesday, Israel simultaneously exploded thousands of pagers – they crossed all red lines.” He said some of the explosions took place in “hospitals, pharmacies, markets, shops, homes, cars, streets where there are many civilians, women and children”.
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[ How Israel secretly made the pagers used in Lebanon explosives attackOpens in new window ]
In a sober address, Mr Nasrallah said little to reassure a Lebanese public that has been terrorised by this week’s detonations, triggering panicked residents across the country to abandon their electronic devices.
He said Hizbullah was investigating how the bombings were carried out, and vowed retribution against Israel, saying the “major and unprecedented aggression ... [would] be met with a severe reckoning and just punishment”.
Sonic booms were heard in the Lebanese capital Beirut, rattling windows and shaking buildings, as Mr Nasrallah spoke for the first time since the device detonations. At the same time Israel’s military said it was striking Hizbullah targets in Lebanon that Lebanese media said spanned the width of the two countries’ border.
Hizbullah said it had also struck at least four targets in northern Israel on Thursday afternoon. Israel’s military said two of its soldiers were killed in the exchange of fire.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, who declared this week that the war was in a “new phase”, said on Thursday evening that Hizbullah felt it was being “chased” and said the “sequence of military actions” against the group would continue. He added: “As time goes by, Hizbullah will pay an increasing price.”
In his speech, Mr Nasrallah added that “Israel intended to kill 4,000 people in one minute when it detonated the pagers because there were 4,000 pagers ... that does not include how many bystanders would have been killed as well. The next day, they wanted to kill thousands too, [who were] holding walkie-talkies”.
The Hizbullah leader described the attacks as unprecedented, saying “they could be considered a war crime, or an announcement of war”, but he also downplayed the severity of their impact, saying Hizbollah’s structure and command had not been badly affected.
“Yes, we received a big and harsh blow, but this is also the nature of war,” Mr Nasrallah said. “We know that our enemy has superiority on the technological level and we have never said otherwise.”
In the aftermath of the blasts, the Lebanese army said it was detonating suspicious pagers and communication devices, while Lebanese authorities have banned walkie-talkies and pagers from flights out of Beirut airport.
Hizbullah and Israel have been exchanging intensifying fire for almost a year since Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, with the Lebanese militants saying they were acting in “solidarity” with the Palestinian group.
The violence has largely been contained to the Israel-Lebanon border region, but Israel this week said the conflict was moving to a “new phase” as prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed to make northern Israel safe enough for displaced people to return.
Israel has not directly commented on the explosions of electronic devices, but on Thursday said that its chief of the general staff, Herzi Halevi, had “completed approval of plans for the northern arena” bordering Lebanon.
Fears have mounted that the simmering war of attrition between the enemies may be escalating into full-blown conflict. Echoing his previous pronouncements, Mr Nasrallah said that unless it stopped “the aggression against the people of Gaza”, nothing would allow Israel to return its displaced residents to the north – whether a military escalation, assassinations or full-blown war.
Israel had sent a message through official and unofficial channels, “threatening that if we do not close our front, they have more in store for us”, he said. “We tell Netanyahu and Gallant: the Lebanese front will not stop until the war on Gaza ends.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024