5 hours ago
26
Updated
The leader of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, on Thursday accused Israel of breaking “all conventions and laws” and vowed that “retribution will come” after the coordinated explosions of hand-held devices belonging to his fighters that killed at least 37 people over two terrifying days in Lebanon.
“Indeed, we have endured a severe and cruel blow,” Mr. Nasrallah said, calling the attack that targeted Hezbollah operatives “perhaps unprecedented.” In his first public remarks since the extraordinary attacks this week, Mr. Nasrallah did not say how Hezbollah would retaliate. “I will not speak about time, or form, or place,” he said.
He also vowed that the exploding-device attacks would not deter Hezbollah from continuing to launch rockets and drones at Israel in support of Hamas’s struggle against the Israeli military in Gaza.
As he spoke, two large sonic booms from Israeli fighter jets shook buildings in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, an apparent show of might by Israel.
The attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies this week — widely attributed to Israel — have increased fears of a wider regional war that could draw in both Iran, which backs Hezbollah, and the United States, Israel’s most important ally.
Here is what else to know:
Second wave: Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, raised the death toll from the attack on walkie-talkies on Wednesday to at least 25 people, with more than 600 others injured. A day earlier, an operation targeted thousands of Hezbollah-owned pagers, leading them to explode in their owners’ hands and pockets. That attack killed 12 people, including two children. Mr. Abiad said Thursday said that about 2,300 people had been injured in the Tuesday blasts, fewer than he had originally reported.
Walkie-talkies: The Japanese company whose name was on the two-way radios that exploded said Thursday that it had discontinued that model a decade ago and had warned of fake versions.
Cross-border strikes: Israel and the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah traded cross-border attacks overnight. Two anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon toward the Upper Galilee region of Israel injured eight people, according to Israel’s public broadcaster. Israel’s military said it had struck Hezbollah targets including a weapons storage facility in southern Lebanon.
Fear at a funeral: The explosions on Wednesday caused panic at a funeral for two Hezbollah fighters, a paramedic and a child who had been killed in Tuesday’s attacks. Mourners were urged to remove their batteries from their phones.
The youngest victim: Mourners gathered in the village of Saraain for the funeral of 9-year-old Fatima Abdullah, who died on Tuesday in the pager attack. They chanted as they made their way through the cemetery: “They killed our child Fatima!”
Hezbollah’s dilemma: Analysts say the attacks have humiliated the armed group, piercing its reputation as one of Israel’s most sophisticated foes and seeming to necessitate a forceful response. But retaliating fiercely could ignite a wider escalation with Israel even as many of its fighters are apparently incapacitated by the attacks.
The Israeli military announced the death of two Israeli soldiers killed during combat in northern Israel on Thursday, including one with the rank of major. It did not elaborate on the circumstances.
Nasrallah just said he will not discuss any details of how Hezbollah could respond to Israel for the explosions. “I will not speak about time, or form, or place,” he said. “This retribution will come.”
Two massive sonic booms from the Israeli fighter jets shook buildings and sent residents running into the street. I can still hear the roar of the planes as they circle the city. This is not the first time a boom has been timed with Nasrallah’s speech, but these appeared louder than before and the planes appeared to fly much lower. Nasrallah appeared unfazed.
Nasrallah told his audience that Hezbollah had received messages that the goal of the Israeli operation was to force the group to cease its military operations in solidarity with Gaza. Hezbollah has said it will not stop firing missiles and drones at Israel until it ends its war against Hamas. “No matter which future awaits the region — the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting and backing the people of Gaza,” Nasrallah reiterated.
Image
The roar of Israeli fighter jets ripped through the skies above Beirut as Nasrallah began speaking. A reporter with The New York Times counted at least three jet trails in the skies above the city.
Hezbollah has formed committees to investigate the security breach that enabled the blasts, Nasrallah said. He said they have nearly reached their conclusions but still need some more time.
“Indeed, we have endured a severe and cruel blow,” Nasrallah said, calling the attack that targeted its operatives “perhaps unprecedented.”
In his address, Nasrallah accused Israel of breaking “all conventions and laws and red lines” through what is believed to be its coordinated detonation of pagers and radios. He says the devices detonated in civilian areas, including hospitals. Hezbollah missiles fired at Israel have also wounded and killed civilians since the beginning of the war.
Video
The Israeli military said in a statement that it was striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, with Lebanon’s state-run news agency reporting airstrikes and artillery shelling in a number of towns in the country’s south. The Israeli military announcement appeared timed to the beginning of a speech by Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has begun addressing the public for the first time since the two days of stunning attacks that detonated pagers and handheld radios across Lebanon.
Image
NEWS Analysis
Image
The contrast between the dexterity of Israel’s latest attacks on Hezbollah and the uncertainty over its long-term strategy in Lebanon is the latest example of a fragility at the heart of Israeli statecraft, according to Israeli public figures and analysts.
To friend and foe alike, Israel appears technologically strong, but strategically lost. It is capable of extraordinary acts of espionage, as well as powerful expressions of military might, but is struggling to tie such efforts to long-term diplomatic and geopolitical goals.
“You see the sophistication of the technological minds of Israel and the total failure of the political leadership to carry out any moves of consequence,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister.
“They are too preoccupied and obsessed by their fears to do anything on a broader strategic basis,” Mr. Olmert said.
Israel’s security services have infiltrated and sabotaged Hezbollah’s communications networks by blowing up pagers and other wireless devices this week, but Israel’s leadership appears uncertain about how to contain the group in the long term. Israel has conducted several clandestine missions and assassinations inside Iran, most recently of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by infiltrating a guesthouse protected by the Iranian security establishment. At the same time, it has avoided making the political concessions necessary to forge formal alliances with most of Iran’s opponents in the region.
Its commandos have freed several hostages from captivity through complex special operations, even as its politicians have failed to secure a wider deal to rescue more than 100 others still held in Gaza. And while Israel’s world-leading Air Force has pounded Gaza, destroying much of the territory’s urban fabric and killing top Hamas commanders like Muhammad Deif, the Israeli government has not issued a detailed and viable plan for Gaza’s postwar future.
The result is a slow and repetitive military campaign in Gaza in which Israeli soldiers are repeatedly capturing and then withdrawing from the same pockets of land, with no mandate to either hold ground or initiate a transfer of power to a different Palestinian leadership.
Israel’s campaigns have come at considerable cost. By killing tens of thousands of Gazan civilians as well as several hundred Lebanese in its strikes on enemy combatants, Israel has prompted international outcry, drawn accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and tarnished its global standing without conclusively destroying Hamas, let alone Hezbollah.
For now at least, Israel’s choices have also undermined its chance to forge diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, the most influential Arab country and one that could provide Israel with an extra diplomatic and even military buffer against Iran and Hezbollah. Talks to normalize relations with Riyadh have stumbled amid Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinian sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank after the war.
For some, the scrambled thinking is partly derived from the shock of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The attack was the bloodiest day in Israel’s history and may have left Israel’s leaders seeking short-term wins to atone for their lapses that day, at the expense of long-term planning for Israel’s future. With many Israelis traumatized by the attack, their leaders risk losing popularity and further tarnishing their legacy by promoting contentious compromises to bring Israel’s various wars to a close.
“Tactical successes can be obtained by professionals, but large-scale achievements have to be achieved by leaders,” said Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. “They must be able to bite their tongue, go against the grain, take unpopular decisions and political risks.”
For Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Israel’s security must be prioritized at all costs, and Hamas and Hezbollah must be fully defanged — in part to restore the sense of deterrence and invincibility that Israel lost on Oct. 7 — before diplomatic compromises can be reached.
But to Mr. Netanyahu’s critics, true security cannot be achieved without a diplomatic vision that Israel’s allies and potential allies can accept; they argue that Israel’s successful operations against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran will only have limited effect in the long term if they remain divorced from a coherent national strategy. According to his opponents, Mr. Netanyahu has allowed political considerations — principally his need to prevent the collapse of his fragile coalition government — to supersede strategic decisions that are opposed by his coalition allies.
Mr. Netanyahu’s grip on power is dependent on a group of far-right lawmakers who are opposed to the kinds of compromises necessary to reach an endgame in Gaza and Lebanon.
Those lawmakers have threatened to collapse Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition if he agrees to a truce in Gaza that leaves Hamas in power. They also oppose plans to hand power to Hamas’s main Palestinian rival, Fatah.
In turn, the standoff in Gaza has led to the extension of the war along the Israel-Lebanon border, where Hezbollah says it will continue fighting until a truce is reached between Israel and Hamas.
Mr. Netanyahu’s allies say the attacks this week in Lebanon, coupled with the deployment of more troops to the Lebanon border, show a clear strategic effort to use increased military action to force Hezbollah to compromise.
“Even though these are tactical moves, it’s part of a bigger plan,” said Nadav Shtrauchler, a political strategist and former adviser to Mr. Netanyahu. After months of contained conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border, Mr. Shtrauchler said, “We’re going to go strong at Hezbollah.”
To others, the moves still feel inconclusive, stopping short of a decisive end to the deadlock through either force or diplomacy. On the one hand, Mr. Netanyahu has avoided ordering a ground invasion of Lebanon. On the other, he has rejected a truce in Gaza that could end the Lebanon war through mediation.
“Where is he going? How does he end the war?” asked Mr. Rabinovich, the former ambassador. “All these fundamental questions have not been answered, and in some cases not even asked in the public discourse.”
To Mr. Olmert, the former prime minister, Israel’s lack of strategy extends far beyond Mr. Netanyahu.
The problem is rooted, Mr. Olmert said, in a reluctance across Israeli society and its establishment to address or sometimes even acknowledge a conundrum within Israel — the question of Palestinian sovereignty.
“There is no endgame on any issue without the Palestinians,” Mr. Olmert said.
Many Israelis now reject the idea of a Palestinian state because they feel a sovereign Palestine, shorn of Israeli supervision, would be more able to mount the kind of attack that Hamas initiated on Oct. 7.
Even centrist and left-leaning leaders mostly see the resumption of peace talks as a non-starter, given that one of the two leading Palestinian factions, Hamas, killed more than one thousand Israeli civilians less than a year ago and the other, Fatah, is weak and discredited among much of the Palestinian population.
Without agreeing to a pathway to a Palestinian state, it will be difficult for Israel to solve most of its other strategic binds, Mr. Olmert said.
For example, it will be harder to plan for a postwar Gaza without showing more flexibility on Palestinian sovereignty, Mr. Olmert said: The only feasible Palestinian alternative to Hamas is the Palestinian Authority, the Fatah-dominated institution that administers parts of the West Bank.
By allowing the Palestinian Authority to govern in both Gaza and the West Bank, Israel would in effect reestablish political contiguity between the two territories, making it easier to form a Palestinian state that spans both places.
Without at least some progress toward Palestinian statehood, it will also be harder for Israel to forge formal ties with Saudi Arabia, since the Saudi leadership has made clear that concessions to the Palestinians are a prerequisite for normalization. And by forging such an alliance, Israel could firm up its standing in the region and make Iran and its Hezbollah proxy warier of antagonizing Israel, since Saudi Arabia also shares Israel’s wariness of Tehran, Mr. Olmert said.
“Hezbollah and Iran won’t suddenly become Zionists, but it will change the balance,” said Mr. Olmert. “It will make life for Israel much easier to deal with such challenges.”
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
Image
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has declared that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel before the “establishment of a Palestinian state,” an apparent hardening of his position on an issue that could reshape the diplomatic map of the Middle East.
“The kingdom will not cease its tireless efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and we affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without one,” the crown prince and the kingdom’s de facto ruler said on Wednesday in an address to a senior advisory council. “We thank all the countries that recognized the Palestinian state as an embodiment of international legitimacy, and we urge other countries to take similar steps.”
For decades, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, like those of most other Arab countries, refused to recognize Israel without the creation of a state for the Palestinians. But after 2020, when four Arab states established formal ties with Israel in agreements brokered by then-President Donald J. Trump, Prince Mohammed became the first Saudi leader to talk openly about the possibility of Saudi Arabia doing the same.
In an interview with Fox News last September, he called a potential agreement “the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War” and said it would require “a good life for the Palestinians” but did not mention Palestinian statehood.
His statement on Wednesday followed a general hardening of official Saudi rhetoric toward Israel since the start of the Gaza war in October.
“We renew the kingdom’s rejection and strong condemnation of the crimes of the Israeli occupation authority against the Palestinian people,” Prince Mohammed said, delivering remarks on behalf of his father.
The crown prince’s statement came nearly a month after President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority visited him in Riyadh.
Until Hamas sparked the Gaza war with a devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7, both Israeli and Saudi officials had been indicating they were moving toward a deal.
Saudi Arabia has been seeking security guarantees, including a defense pact with the United States and assistance with a civilian nuclear program as part of any agreement. During the Fox News interview, Prince Mohammed stated that Riyadh was “getting closer” to an accord.
However, since the Gaza war broke out, Saudi Arabia has insisted on the need for an “irreversible track” to Palestinian statehood.
This month, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he still hoped to finalize an Israeli-Saudi deal before the end of President Biden’s term. “I think if we can get a cease-fire in Gaza, there remains an opportunity through the balance of this administration to move forward on normalization,” Mr. Blinken said.
Palestinian officials welcomed the crown prince’s comments, saying that they supported the position of the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership.
“This is an affirmation that the Saudi position is enduring in its support of the Palestinian cause,” Mahmoud al-Habbash, the religious affairs adviser to Mr. Abbas, said in an interview on Thursday. “We’re reassured about the Saudi stance, which is a cornerstone of the Arab and Islamic world’s position.”
The number of people injured in Tuesday’s attack was revised downward, to about 2,300, because some cases had been counted multiple times as patients were transferred between hospitals, Lebanon’s health minister told The Times. More than 200 people are still in critical condition from Tuesday, along with 160 who were critically injured in the second wave of attacks on Wednesday, he said.
The death toll from Wednesday’s attacks has risen. At least 25 people were killed and over 600 injured in the attacks, Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, told a news conference.
Reached by phone, Abiad said that the walkie-talkies targeted on Wednesday were heavier and caused more damage when they blew up, leading to a higher death toll than in the pager attacks a day earlier.
Image
The fear spread quickly.
Some people hurried to disconnect their appliances. Others unplugged the inverters and solar systems powering their homes. Many kept their cellphones away from them and refused to answer calls. Baby monitors, televisions, laptops — residents of Lebanon viewed them all with suspicion. Could they be the next devices to unexpectedly explode?
After two consecutive days of attacks — in which hand-held communication devices detonated across Lebanon, killing dozens and injuring thousands — the tiny Mediterranean nation was rattled. The explosions were an apparent attack by Israel on members of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group. But that did not stop others from fearing for their lives.
“Maybe tomorrow lighters will explode, too,” said Hussein Awada, 54, who works as a private driver. “If you want to light a cigarette, it will just explode in your hand.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Awada witnessed the second wave of attacks on Hezbollah, when walkie-talkies owned by the group’s members exploded, a day after thousands of Hezbollah pagers blew up. He had watched as a man had his hand blown off by the two-way radio he was holding.
Image
The blasts were part of an elaborate Israeli operation to infiltrate Hezbollah’s supply chain, according to officials briefed on the attack, though Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any role in the explosions. On Thursday, Lebanon’s civil aviation authority banned pagers and walkie-talkies from all flights leaving Beirut’s airport.
The attacks have further ratcheted up fears of a major war between Israel and Hezbollah, which have exchanged thousands of missiles and rockets since the war in Gaza began in October.
To Mr. Awada, the clandestine work that went into booby-trapping Hezbollah’s devices and the apparently seamless coordination of the attack were like a work of fiction.
“I saw stuff today that you can only see in movies,” he said.
At least 32 people have died in the attacks, a significant number of which Hezbollah confirmed as members, although children and health workers were among the dead. More than 3,000 other people were confirmed to have been wounded in the attacks since Tuesday afternoon, many maimed with hand or face injuries.
Hezbollah is Lebanon’s dominant military and political force and is designated a terrorist group by Israel and the United States. But for many Lebanese, it is an organization with deep roots in society, providing a roster of social services and welfare programs across the country in the place of the ailing state.
Everyone, it seems, had some connection to the dead and wounded.
“In Dahieh, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t know someone who was affected,” said Mortada Smaoui, 30, a local business owner, using the Arabic name for Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs. “Either it’s your friend, or a relative or a friend of friend, so you can clearly feel the sorrow and the anger.”
After the first attack on Tuesday, Mr. Smaoui rushed to the nearest hospital, heeding calls for volunteers to donate blood. There he witnessed the chaos firsthand: bodies being carried away in blood-soaked sheets, family members frantically searching for their loved ones and the wails of injured victims who were being turned away because of a lack of beds.
Still, Mr. Smaoui said after the first attack that it had shown Lebanon at its best, with citizens from across the country’s sectarian patchwork coming together to clear roads and give blood, so much so that hospitals had to turn away prospective donors.
“I felt unity,” he said.
Image
That sentiment was shattered on Wednesday when he was once again confronted by the carnage.
“There are buildings burning right now in front of me,” Mr. Smaoui said in the minutes after the second round of explosions, staring up at an apartment block engulfed in flames.
Dr. Salah Zeineddine, the chief medical officer at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, said the attacks were “beyond any catastrophe” he had dealt with before. Nearly 200 patients were rushed into the hospital in just three hours on Tuesday after the first wave of explosions, quickly swamping it.
“There have been so many catastrophes and mass casualties in Lebanon, but this was the first time we have seen so many casualties in such a short period of time,” Dr. Zeineddine said.
The wounded were still being tended to on Wednesday when the second round of blasts struck.
“People in the streets were screaming,” Adnan Berro, 61, said. “It was chaos. There was so much blood — on their hands, their faces, everywhere.”
“I have never seen anything like it,” he said.
Image
Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah traded cross-border attacks overnight and into Thursday, continuing a pattern of strikes after two extraordinary days in which hand-held devices belonging to Hezbollah members exploded, killing over 30 and wounding thousands of others.
Two anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon toward the Upper Galilee region of Israel injured eight people, six lightly and two more seriously, according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster. It gave no details and did not say whether those wounded were civilians or military. It was not possible to confirm the reports independently.
Hezbollah said that it had launched exploding drones at an Israeli military base and at artillery positions. The Israeli military said that there were no immediate reports of injuries, but that firefighters were working to battle blazes caused by drones.
Israel’s military said it had struck infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah at six sites, as well as a weapons storage facility near the town of Khiam in southern Lebanon.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel started the war in Gaza, Hezbollah has fired thousands of missiles and drones at Israel in support of Hamas, which like Hezbollah is backed by Iran.
Israel has struck back, assassinating senior members of the militia and striking thousands of targets. This week’s attacks on Hezbollah members, which have been widely attributed to Israel, have escalated concerns that the conflict could turn into a larger war.
More than 100,000 people have fled their homes in southern Lebanon, and Israel has ordered the evacuation of more than 60,000 people in the north of the country.
Euan Ward contributed reporting.
Hezbollah has announced the deaths of 20 fighters since Wednesday afternoon. Although the group does not reveal when and how their fighters are killed, that figure matches the death toll reported by Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which suggests that all of those killed on Wednesday may have been militants. The ministry is scheduled to hold another news conference in a couple of hours.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said that he had spoken with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III overnight. Gallant said the discussion focused on “Israel’s defense against Hezbollah threats” — without explicitly mentioning the attacks on wireless devices, for which Israel has not publicly taken responsibility.
Image
The Japanese manufacturer whose name was on handheld radios that exploded in Lebanon said Thursday that it had discontinued the device a decade ago and was investigating what happened.
The company, Icom, a telecommunications equipment maker based in Osaka, Japan, had shipped IC-V82 transceivers — the model whose name is seen on radios in photos and a video of the aftermath of Wednesday’s attacks — to overseas markets, including the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014.
Icom said in a statement Thursday that it had not shipped any of the IC-V82 radios from its plant in Wakayama, Japan, in roughly a decade. But the company has long warned of what it called a surge in counterfeit IC-V82 transceivers.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said on Thursday that the Japanese government was looking into the matter.
At least 25 people were killed and over 600 injured on Wednesday when walkie-talkies owned by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon, the country’s health minister said. It was unclear where Hezbollah purchased the devices that exploded.
Icom, founded in 1954, sells radios and other products in more than 80 countries and has about 1,000 employees. According to the company, it has supplied electronics gear to public safety organizations and the U.S. Department of Defense and Marine Corps.
Icom said it has no inventory of the IC-V82 model and has issued warnings saying that “almost all” IC-V82 radios available for purchase are counterfeit. Icom said it has taken legal action against counterfeit manufacturers and has warned about fake models since at least 2020.
A day before the radio explosions, blasts from pagers killed at least 12 people and wounded over 2,700 others in Lebanon. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any role in the explosions, but 12 current and former defense and intelligence officials briefed on the attack say the Israelis were behind it.
Image
Companies that make two-way radios say the devices typically have a life span of about five to seven years, though that can depend on their usage.
“Copies of these models are floating in the market,” Icom has said in warnings posted online. Authentic products have a hologram label that says “Icom” and “genuine,” according to the company.
Icom said on Thursday that because the devices that exploded in Lebanon were not fixed with the counterfeit-prevention sticker, it was not possible to confirm whether they had originated with the company. Icom declined to specify how it determined that the radios did not have the label.
The company said it sells products only to authorized distributors and that it upholds strict export controls based on regulations set by Japan’s economy ministry. The company said it would continue to provide updates when it receives new information.
Counterfeit versions of the radios are at risk of catching fire or exploding because of battery malfunctions, Icom said. Many are labeled “made in China,” according to Icom. The company said that all of its radios are produced at factories in Japan.
The devices were readily available online on Thursday. At least two vendors on Taobao, a Chinese e-commerce marketplace, were selling what they said were Icom IC-V82 walkie-talkies, one for $32 apiece and the other for $34. Three vendors were selling what was listed as the Icom walkie-talkie on another Chinese e-commerce platform, JD.com, and quoted prices of $35, $55 and $104.
A website that aims to connect Chinese suppliers with buyers overseas, available in over a dozen languages, offered the IC-V82 for $38 each if purchased in an order of 1,000 or more.
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing and Li You contributed research.
Image
Israel has not claimed responsibility for this week’s audacious attacks using booby-trapped wireless devices against members of Hezbollah, but the country’s prime minister and defense minister issued statements on Wednesday making it clear that the military’s focus was shifting from the war in the Gaza Strip, along Israel’s southern border, to Lebanon, where Hezbollah operates.
“The center of gravity is moving north, meaning that we are allocating forces, resources and energy for the northern arena,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said on Wednesday in an address to troops at an air base in northern Israel. “We are at the start of a new phase in the war.”
Mr. Gallant’s comments came just after Israel’s cabinet officially adopted a new, formal war goal this week: ensuring that tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel who have been displaced by attacks from Hezbollah can return safely to their homes.
Later on Wednesday, as the exploding attacks continued, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a video statement emphasizing the same goal. “I already said that we would return the residents of the North securely to their homes, and that is exactly what we will do,” he said.
Hezbollah, a militant group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, has been targeting northern Israel with rockets and drones since last year in solidarity with Hamas and its war against Israel in Gaza. Both militant groups are supported by Iran and want to eliminate the state of Israel.
The daily exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel has been destructive, disruptive and sometimes deadly for Israelis and Lebanese living along the border, and it has raised concerns among world leaders that a wider regional war could break out and draw in Iran.
For months, international diplomats have been working to avert that outcome. There was, until recently, hope that a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza in exchange for the release of dozens of hostages kidnapped from Israel would also resolve the conflict with Hezbollah. But the cease-fire talks have stalled, and tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have been steadily mounting in recent months.
In July, Israeli forces struck a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, and assassinated a top Hezbollah commmander, Fuad Shukr. The Israeli military said Mr. Shukr’s killing was in response to a rocket attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that killed a dozen children in Majdal Shams, a Druze Arab village, though Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for that strike. Hezbollah vowed to avenge Mr. Shukr’s death, and in late August it launched about 300 rockets into Israel, claiming that it struck an Israeli military target.
Military experts have noted that so far Israel and Hezbollah have exercised relative restraint. But there are fears that the conflict may escalate if a diplomatic resolution does not come soon. Israeli officials on Wednesday appeared to be signaling that such an escalation was fast approaching.
The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, on Wednesday reviewed contingency plans for a possible conflict with Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, according to a military statement.
“We are very determined to create the security conditions that will return the residents to their homes, to the communities, with a high level of security, and we are ready to do all that is required to bring about these things,” General Halevi said, adding that “at each stage, the price for Hezbollah must be high.”
Still, Israeli leaders are bracing for a difficult fight. In his address on Wednesday, Mr. Gallant said that Hezbollah would be a more challenging opponent than Hamas had been in Gaza. “It’s not Hamas,” he said. “This is something else, and we need to prepare for this accordingly and take it into account.”
The two-way radios that exploded in Lebanon on Wednesday were larger and heavier than the pagers that blew up across the country on Tuesday, and in some cases set off larger fires, according to a New York Times analysis of the available visual evidence.
The devices, seen in photos and a video of the aftermath of Wednesday’s attacks, were nearly three times heavier than the pagers, and while the blasts on Wednesday were not as widespread as the earlier ones, they set off more large fires, suggesting that they might have contained more explosives.
The Lebanese health ministry said that at least 20 people had been killed and more than 450 wounded. That added to the toll from Tuesday, when the blasts from pagers killed 12 people and wounded over 2,700 others, according to the ministry.
Image
Fires broke out in at least 71 homes and stores, and at least 18 cars and motorcycles were set ablaze, according to Lebanese Civil Defense, the country’s emergency service.
The Times reviewed three photos and one video to identify the communication devices involved in Wednesday’s attacks as the IC-V82, a two-way radio bearing the brand of the Japanese company Icom. It is unclear where Hezbollah purchased the radios.
In some cases, the back of the device was blown off, indicating the force of the explosions, while in other instances, the front of the device was visibly damaged.
Image
Image
Hezbollah militants have been previously linked to the IC-V82. In 2022, United Against Nuclear Iran, a privately funded group advocating stronger sanctions on Iran, had warned that Hezbollah was using Icom’s devices. And a Hezbollah fighter was photographed in 2022 wearing an Icom two-way radio.
Alexander Cardia contributed video and graphics production.
Image
The mass explosions of wireless devices across Lebanon this week appear to be the latest in a string of covert attacks in recent years believed to have been conducted by Israel against its enemies abroad.
The attacks — including a series against Iran’s nuclear program — have embarrassed enemies and demonstrated Israel’s prowess at using military technology in ways that suggest it can strike anywhere and at any time.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, has blamed Israel for the attacks, in which explosive material was planted in wireless devices and detonated remotely.
On Tuesday, at least 12 people were killed and thousands were maimed when pagers bought by Hezbollah for its members exploded. There was a second attack on Wednesday, when walkie-talkies that the militant group had bought exploded, killing at least 14 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
The blasts appeared to cast a far wider net than other attacks, which frequently targeted individuals.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for this week’s attacks, or for many other attacks that have been attributed to it. They include:
Attacks on Iran’s nuclear program
A series of operations, including assassinations and sabotage, over the years have targeted senior leaders involved with Iran’s nuclear program. These included the poisoning of a nuclear scientist in 2007 and the killing of another in 2010 by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle.
Between 2010 and 2012, four people with links to Iran’s nuclear program were killed by hit men riding motorcycles. In one case, in 2010, an assassin attached a sticky bomb to a car door. In others, gunmen approached vehicles in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and fired through the window before speeding off.
In November 2020, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by gunshots fired from a truck-mounted machine gun that had been attached to a remote-controlled robotic apparatus. Experts said the operation had taken months, and likely years, of planning.
Cyber warfare and nuclear secrets
Starting in 2006, U.S. military and Israeli intelligence officials began a top-secret cyberwar program against Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.
Israel’s Dimona complex, the heart of its never-acknowledged nuclear arms program in the Negev desert, was used as a testing ground for the Stuxnet computer worm. The destructive program was eventually credited with wiping out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, which Tehran needs to produce a nuclear weapon.
In 2018, Israeli spies armed with torches broke into a warehouse in Tehran and seized a trove of documents about Iran’s nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later used the documents to accuse Iran of lying for years about its efforts to build a nuclear weapon.
After Oct. 7
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has conducted a series of assassinations of commanders of Iran’s regional proxy forces, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
These attacks have come at the same time as Israel’s wide-scale military offensive in Gaza, which health officials there say have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians. The United Nations, human rights groups and some governments have accused Israel of using disproportionate force in its war in Gaza against Hamas. Israel says its use of force is justified and legal.
In April, Israel bombed a building that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, Syria, killing seven people including a general who oversaw Iran’s covert military operations in Syria and Lebanon. In response, Iran launched a missile and drone attack on Israel, the first time it had attempted to strike the country directly after a decadeslong shadow war.
In July, Israel assassinated a senior leader of Hezbollah, Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike on a house in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Israel claimed responsibility for the killing, which it said was retaliation for an attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights days earlier that had killed at least 12 people.
Hours later, the leader of Hamas’s political office, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by an explosive device hidden in a guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying after he had attended the inauguration of Iran’s president. Iran vowed to retaliate for the attack, which it called a violation of its sovereignty. Israel did not confirm or deny involvement in that attack.
