The Israeli air force carried out new strikes on Lebanon on Thursday as tensions rose following a spate of coordinated explosions targeting Lebanese electronic devices widely blamed on Israel.
At least 37 people have been killed after hundreds of pagers belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia exploded simultaneously in Lebanon on Tuesday, and a second wave of communications equipment, this time walkie-talkies, exploded on Wednesday.
About 3,000 people were injured in the explosions across the country, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said at a news conference in the capital Beirut.
Israel’s military and intelligence services have not publicly claimed responsibility for the coordinated detonations. Hezbollah and Iran have accused them of orchestrating the attacks. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the US and Israel have been seen as Tehran’s main opponents.
The Israeli military said Thursday night that it had fired about 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers “that were ready to be deployed in the near future to fire towards Israeli territory.”
In addition, the air force struck “terrorist infrastructure” and a weapons depot in southern Lebanon, while artillery fired on the Naqoura area, the Israeli military said.
In Lebanon, which borders Israel to the south, there are concerns that the Israeli army is preparing a ground offensive against the country.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said military action against Hezbollah “will continue.”
“Hezbollah feels persecuted,” Gallant said after a briefing on operational developments in northern Israel, according to his office.
But he added: “The series of our military actions will continue.”
“In the new phase of the war there are important opportunities, but also important risks,” Gallant said.
According to the minister, the talks with senior military and intelligence commanders revolved around various scenarios in the fight against Hezbollah. The aim was to give evacuees from northern Israel the opportunity to return home.
The military urged civilians to stay away from military training areas in the north of the country over the weekend.
The military will conduct “activities” there that could expose unauthorized persons in those areas to a potentially life-threatening situation, the report said.
The report further said that shots and explosions could possibly be heard in nearby villages.
The precise meaning of the instructions was initially unclear.
The region has faced a constant risk of escalation since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in October. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are groups hostile to Israel and backed by Iran.
Hezbollah leader vows retaliation
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called the successive explosions of communications equipment a “declaration of war.”
“There is no doubt that we have suffered a huge blow in terms of security and humanitarian aid, unprecedented in the history of our resistance and perhaps even in the history of conflict with the enemy,” he said.
He vowed, “in the name of the martyrs and the wounded, that the front in Lebanon will not stop until the aggression against Gaza stops, regardless of the sacrifices made.”
Nasrallah called the explosions “a major terrorist operation, an act of genocide and a massacre,” and vowed punishment and retaliation for this act of “unprecedented aggression.”
He also commented on Israel’s efforts to return people who fled the area because of ongoing fighting to the north.
“What you are doing will only increase the displacement of people from the north and make it impossible for them to return,” the leader of the Iran-backed militia said.
As Nasrallah spoke, Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over Beirut, causing sounds that sounded like a bomb blast and causing panic.
Iran sends ambassador and patients from Lebanon
Earlier, Iran evacuated its ambassador and 95 patients injured in pager explosions from Lebanon, officials said. Most of the injured had eye and hand injuries.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited wounded diplomat Mojtaba Amani at a hospital in Tehran on Thursday.
Hezbollah is Iran’s main non-state ally.
Two Israeli soldiers killed in attack in Lebanon
Two Israeli soldiers, a 20-year-old soldier and a 43-year-old reservist, were killed in the north of the country by Lebanese shelling, the army said.
According to the Times of Israel, the reservist was killed in the western Galilee region by an explosive-laden drone fired by Hezbollah.
The younger soldier was reportedly killed in a Hezbollah attack with two anti-tank missiles on Israel’s northern border. Eight other soldiers were wounded, one seriously, the report said.
This brings the official death toll in Israel in the border area with Lebanon since October 8 to 48, including civilians and soldiers.
During that period, approximately 600 people were killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters.
Fighting continued. An Israeli airstrike lightly wounded four people near the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre.
