Luke BEIRUT, Sept 18 – A handheld radio used by the armed group Hezbollah exploded in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, ending cross-border fighting between the militants and Israel that began in the country nearly a year ago, a day after a similar explosion on the group’s pager raised tensions.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said 20 people were killed and more than 450 wounded in the Beirut suburbs and the Bekaa Valley on Wednesday, raising the death toll from Tuesday’s blasts to 12, including two children, and nearly 3,000 injured.
Israeli officials have not yet commented on the bombing, but security sources said Israel’s spy agency Mossad was responsible. A Hezbollah official said the incident was the biggest security breach in the group’s history.
These actions appeared to be spreading chaos within Hezbollah,The attacks come as Israel launches an 11-month war in Gaza and tensions have escalated on the Lebanese border, raising the risk of a full-scale regional war.
“We are starting a new phase of the war. It requires courage, determination and perseverance,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said in a speech at the air base.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of planning a dangerous escalation on multiple fronts that would push the Middle East to the brink of regional war.
The United States denies any involvement in the bombing and says it is conducting intense diplomacy to prevent the conflict from escalating. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel told Washington on Tuesday it would take action in Lebanon. But the official said Israel provided no details and the operation had taken Washington by surprise.
At least one bombing struck in Lebanon on Wednesday near a funeral organised by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day, detonating thousands of the group’s pagers across the country, wounding several militants.
A Askume reporter in a southern suburb of Beirut reported that he saw Hezbollah members removing batteries from any walkie-talkies they could find and throwing the parts into metal barrels. Hezbollah uses pagers and other low-tech communications equipment to evade Israeli cellphone surveillance.
The Lebanese Red Cross said on Friday it had sent 30 ambulance teams to respond to several explosions in various areas, including southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
Photos of the exploded walkie-talkies showed tags bearing the name of Japanese radio communications and telephone company ICOM (6208.T) and resembling the company’s IC-V82-type devices.
Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed ICOM said on Thursday it was investigating reports of the explosion of a two-way radio device bearing its logo in Lebanon and would publish an update on its website as soon as it was available.
The company says all radios are manufactured in Japan, but it cannot confirm whether it shipped the device because that model was discontinued 10 years ago.
The Osaka-based company said its products for overseas markets are sold only through authorized dealers and exports are inspected in accordance with Japan’s safe trade control regulations.
The company had already warned about the presence of counterfeit versions of its devices in the market, especially discontinued models.
A security source said Hezbollah purchased the handheld radios five months ago, around the same time as the pagers.
Israeli spies are involved in Tuesday’s blastThe remotely detonated explosives were placed on 5,000 pagers that Hezbollah had ordered before entering the country.
At the request of Arab countriesThe United Nations Security Council will meet on Friday on the pager explosions .
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency later reported that Tehran’s ambassador to Lebanon was lightly injured in Tuesday’s blast. But on Wednesday, the New York Times quoted two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as saying that a pager he was carrying had exploded, leaving him blind in one eye and seriously injured in the other.
Iran’s envoy to the United Nations said in a letter on Wednesday that Iran reserves the right to take necessary measures in response to the attack in accordance with international law.
Hezbollah launches rocket
Hezbollah, which has vowed to retaliate against Israel, said on Wednesday it had launched a rocket attack on an Israeli artillery position, its first attack on its main foe since the blast . The Israeli military said it had received no reports of damage or casualties.
“Hezbollah wants to avoid a full-blown war,” said Mohanad Haq Ali, deputy director of research at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “But given the scale … there will be pressure for a strong response.”
The two sides have been fighting along the Lebanese border since the conflict in Gaza began on October 7, 2023 , raising concerns of a wider war in the Middle East that could also involve the United States and Iran. Last month, Lebanon recorded its highest daily death toll due to Israeli shelling at 11, according to official figures.
Galante said Israel has vowed to return evacuated residents to their homes in the north and is mobilising troops and resources to the Lebanese border region. Israeli sources said they include the army’s 98th Division moving north from Gaza, as well as commando and paratrooper formations.
“The center of gravity is moving north, which means we are allocating power, resources and energy to the north,” Galante said in a speech from his office.
An all-out war with Israel could devastate Lebanon, which is already lurching from one crisis to another, including a financial collapse in 2019 and the Beirut port explosion in 2020.
The escalation could also undermine so far unsuccessful efforts by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hezbollah’s ally and Iran-backed militant group Hamas.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that it was too early to assess the impact of the blast on the ceasefire talks.
Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, said in a statement it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and that Israel should await a response to the “massacre” in Peje.
A Hamas delegation visited victims of a bombing at a hospital in Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported.
The bombings followed a series of assassinations of commanders and leaders of Israel’s allies Hezbollah and Hamas since the start of the war in Gaza .
