After Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed revenge over two explosion attacks that killed at least 37 people, Israel claimed to have hit around 150 launcher barrels in Lebanon
Israel claimed it has hit 30 Hezbollah launchers and infrastructure sites in Lebanon which contained around 150 launcher barrels after the Lebanese group’s leader said this week’s deadly pager attack “crossed all red lines“.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrote on X that it also struck Hezbollah infrastructure and a weapons storage facility in southern Lebanon. It comes as fears of a wider conflict mount, with some analysts believing that Israel could invade its neighboring country following months of strikes between them.
This week, at least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded over two days of exploding device attacks that were blamed on Israel. On Tuesday, 4,000 pagers began exploding all over Lebanon and parts of Syria and on Wednesday, walkie-talkies exploded too, causing more severe injuries since they were bigger than the other devices, Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad said.
Of the 608 people wounded on Wednesday, 61 remain in intensive care, Abiad said, adding that 141 surgeries were performed. The number of dead in the first day of attacks, on Tuesday, remained at 12, the minister said, noting that more than 1,300 people suffered injuries ranging from mid-level to severe. Abiad said 226 people wounded on Tuesday remain in intensive care and 955 operations have been performed.
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said this week’s attacks “crossed all red lines” and vowed to retaliate while accusing Israel of not caring “about anything at all, not morally, not humanely, not legally.” Pointing to the number of pagers and walkie-talkies, he accused Israel of intending to kill thousands of people at one time.
“The enemy will face a severe and fair punishment from where they expect and don’t expect,” Nasrallah said, adding: “The enemy crossed all rules, laws and red lines. It didn’t care about anything at all, not morally, not humanely, not legally.
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“This is massacre, a major aggression against Lebanon, its people, its resistance, its sovereignty, and its security. It can be called war crimes or a declaration of war – whatever you choose to name it, it is deserving and fits the description. This was the enemy’s intention.” Nasrallah vowed to keep up daily strikes on Israel and said Israelis displaced from their homes near the Lebanon border because of the fighting would not be able to return until the war in Gaza ends.
“The only way is stop the aggression on the people of Gaza and the West Bank,” he said. “Neither strikes, nor assassinations nor an all-out war will achieve that.” Earlier Thursday, Hezbollah said it had targeted three Israeli military positions near the border, two of them with drones. Israeli hospitals reported eight people lightly or moderately injured.
Hezbollah says its near-daily fire is a show of support for Hamas. Israel has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 100,000 people during its 11-month war in Gaza, according to the latest casualty figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health. More than 10,000 people are missing and are feared buried under the rubble.
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At least 705 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank, where more than 5,700 people have been injured. In Israel, 1,139 people were killed and at least 8,730 were injured during Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023.
Lebanon is still reeling from the deadly device attacks of Tuesday and Wednesday as the explosions rattled anxious Lebanese fearing a full-scale war. The Lebanese Army said it has been locating and detonating suspicious pagers and communication devices, while the country’s civil aviation authorities banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all airplanes departing from Beirut’s international airport until further notice.
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AFP via Getty Images)