The explosions come a day after thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah were detonated in an apparent Israeli operation.
Walkie talkies used by the paramilitary group Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon on Wednesday in an apparent continuation of the alleged Israeli sabotage operation that killed 12 people and injured thousands on Tuesday.
Lebanese media were the first to report the blasts on Wednesday. The National News Agency said at least three people had been killed. Al-Hadath television reported that at least 100 people had been wounded. A Lebanese security source told Reuters the explosions hit portable radios used by Hezbollah members and took place in Beirut and across southern Lebanon, a region controlled by the paramilitary force.
At least one of the explosions took place during a funeral procession for four people who died when their pagers exploded on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
At least a dozen people were killed, including two children, and more than 3,000 were injured when their pagers — a low-tech and supposedly safe method of communication — spontaneously detonated Tuesday. Lebanese security officials blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, while U.S. and Israeli sources told Axios that the Mossad had rigged the devices to explode several months ago.
The Mossad planned to detonate the pagers in the event of an all-out war with Hezbollah, but decided to detonate them early in case the explosive charges were discovered, a US official told Axios.
The portable radios that exploded on Wednesday were bought in bulk at the same time as the pagers that detonated on Tuesday, a security source told Reuters.
Video footage posted on social media showed destroyed vehicles and fires at the apparent sites of Wednesday's blasts.
Hezbollah has waged a low-intensity military campaign against Israel since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began shelling Gaza nearly a year ago. The campaign, which Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says is aimed at keeping Israeli forces close to the Israel-Lebanon border, has raised fears of a full-scale war on several occasions, as happened after Tuesday's explosions.
In a statement on Wednesday, Hezbollah said it maintains “The Israeli enemy is fully responsible for this criminal aggression.” The group fired a volley of rockets at Israeli positions on Wednesday, several hours before their radios exploded.
You can share this story on social media:
