Israel's deadly attack that blew up Hezbollah radios and pagers crossed all red lines, the leader of Lebanon's heavily armed movement said Thursday, in a speech broadcast as sonic booms from Israeli warplanes shook buildings in Beirut.
Lebanon and Hezbollah blamed Israel for an attack on Hezbollah communications equipment that killed 37 people and wounded about 3,000, overwhelmed Lebanese hospitals and unleashed bloody chaos on Hezbollah's side. While Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement, it is widely believed that intelligence officials from that country were responsible for the attack.
“There is no doubt that we have suffered a major security and military blow, unprecedented in the history of the resistance and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a TV speech, which was filmed at an undisclosed location.
“This kind of killing, targeting and crime is probably unprecedented in the world,” he said, appearing in front of a plain red background in his customary black turban.
The attack “crossed all red lines,” he said.
“The enemy has gone beyond all control, laws and morals,” he said, adding that the attack “can be considered a war crime or a declaration of war, it can be called anything and deserves to be called anything. Of course that was the enemy's intention.”
After a second wave of deadly blasts in Lebanon, experts are now analyzing how attackers were able to penetrate Hezbollah's security to plant thousands of pagers and other devices with explosives.
As the broadcast went off, deafening sonic booms from Israeli warplanes shook Beirut, a sound that has become commonplace in recent months but has taken on greater significance as the threat of all-out war grows. Israel said its warplanes struck southern Lebanon overnight. Hezbollah reported renewed airstrikes in the border area in the afternoon.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah hopes Israeli forces will enter southern Lebanon, as that would create a “historic opportunity” for the Iran-backed group.
Nasrallah: Attack was 'a heavy and hard blow'
No military escalation, assassination, killing or all-out war will return Israeli residents to the border areas, he added, referring to the Israeli government's top wartime priority.
While Nasrallah described the attack as unprecedented, accusing Israel of trying to kill 5,000 people, he also played down its impact on Hezbollah, saying the group's structure had not been shaken.
“Yes, we received a big and heavy blow, but this is also the nature of war,” Nasrallah said. “We know that our enemy has the advantage in terms of technology and we never said otherwise.”
Israel will face a “crushing response from the axis of resistance,” Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami told Nasrallah on Thursday, according to state media.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting on Thursday in northern Israel, the Israeli military said.
Israel's N12 News said one of them was killed by a drone and the other by an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.
The attack on Hezbollah communications equipment has sparked fear across Lebanon, with many people abandoning electronic devices for fear of carrying bombs in their pockets.
“Who can secure their phones now? When I heard about what happened yesterday, I left my phone on my motorbike and just left,” said Mustafa Sibal on a Beirut street.
Residents are asked to report any suspicious devices
Lebanon's military said Thursday it had detonated suspicious pagers and telecommunications devices in controlled explosions in various areas. It asked residents to report any suspicious devices.
Lebanese authorities have banned the use of walkie-talkies and pagers on flights from Beirut airport until further notice, the National News Agency reported. Such devices are also banned from being shipped by air.
Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel a day after a cross-border attack on Oct. 7 by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, sparking the Gaza war, and the exchange of fire has continued since. While neither side has allowed it to escalate into a full-scale war, it has led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the border area on both sides.
“The terrorist organization Hezbollah has turned southern Lebanon into a war zone. For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels under them, and used civilians as human shields,” the Israeli military said.
“TNI AD [Israel Defence Forces] operating to bring security to northern Israel so that the population can return to their homes, as well as to achieve all the goals of the war.”
Israel said its warplanes struck villages in southern Lebanon overnight, and security sources and Hezbollah's al-Manar TV reported airstrikes near the border resumed just after midday Thursday.
Thousands injured, nearly 40 dead
A handheld radio used by Hezbollah exploded Wednesday in southern Lebanon, killing 25 people and wounding hundreds more.
The previous day, hundreds of pagers — used by Hezbollah to evade mobile phone surveillance — exploded simultaneously, killing 12 people including at least two children, and wounding more than 2,300.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the United Nations Security Council to take a firm stance to stop what he called Israel's “aggression” and “technological war” against his country.
Israel says its conflict with Hezbollah, like its war in Gaza against Hamas, is part of a broader regional confrontation with Iran, which sponsors both groups as well as armed movements in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Also on Thursday, Israeli security forces said an Israeli businessman was arrested last month after attending at least two meetings in Iran where he discussed assassinating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defense minister or the head of the Shin Bet spy agency.
Last week, the Shin Bet uncovered what it called a Hezbollah plot to assassinate former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon.
Israel has been accused of assassinations, including a blast in Tehran that killed a Hamas leader and another in a Beirut suburb that killed a senior Hezbollah commander within hours in July.
Despite the events of the past few days, a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon said the situation along the border “has not changed much in terms of the exchange of fire between the two sides.”
“Last week there was an increase in tensions. This week, the situation is more or less the same. There are still exchanges of fire. It is still worrying, it is still worrying, and the rhetoric is high,” said spokesman Andrea Tenenti.