(Bloomberg) -- Lebanon’s death toll from a series of walkie-talkie and pager explosions this week rose to 37, according to local authorities, an illustration of the devastation wrought by a wave of suspected Israeli attacks aimed at Hezbollah militants.
A second wave of blasts on Wednesday killed 25 and injured more than 600, the Lebanese health ministry said. Some occurred at funerals for Hezbollah members who died the previous day when thousands of pagers — most of them carried by the Iran-backed group — exploded in supermarkets, streets and homes across the country. Two children were killed in the near simultaneous detonations on Tuesday and around 2,300 people were wounded.
The attacks have increased fears of a full-blown war between Hezbollah and Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the operations. Israel has diverted more troops to its northern border with Lebanon in recent days, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declaring a “new phase” in the country’s battles against Islamist militant groups.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in attacks in the north of the country close to Lebanon on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement, without giving further detail. State-run Lebanese media reported Israeli warplanes flying over Beirut.
While there are few signals an invasion of Lebanon is imminent, Israeli officials have said diplomacy with Hezbollah is failing and they’ll be forced into more aggressive action to move the group’s fighters and weapons away from the border. “Hezbollah will pay an increasing price,” Gallant said in a Thursday briefing.
Israel continues to combat Hamas in Gaza and cease-fire talks have stalled, though the intensity of that conflict is easing. Israel remains committed to destroying the Palestinian group and retrieving hostages held in Gaza since the war began almost a year ago, Gallant said, but is increasingly focused on Hezbollah.
The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Hossein Salami, said Israel will face a crushing response for this week’s escalation and threatened “the destruction of this cruel and criminal regime,” according the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
Hezbollah is the strongest of the Iran-backed regional groups targeting Israel, with tens of thousands of fighters and at least as many missiles and rockets, according to Israeli intelligence estimates. Many Israelis fear it could overwhelm their country’s vaunted air defenses in the event of an escalation.
The two sides have been trading fire since the war in Gaza erupted in October, though have largely limited their strikes to military targets, usually near the border area, where thousands have been evacuated on both sides. Hezbollah says it’s acting in solidarity with Hamas and won’t stop its attacks until Israel agrees to a cease-fire in the territory.
The US, which considers Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, is trying to calm tensions and is urging Israel not to escalate its attacks to the point of causing an all-out war.
Red Lines Crossed
It’s unclear to what extent this week’s blasts in Lebanon have dented Hezbollah’s fighting capacity. The group has said it will retaliate and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, struck a defiant tone in a speech on Thursday.
Israel crossed all red lines and rules of engagement by blowing up the pagers and other devices, Nasrallah said. The attacks won’t deter Hezbollah from firing on Israel until there’s a truce in Gaza, he said.
He described the explosions as “a huge security and humanitarian blow” to Hezbollah and said many victims suffered injuries to their eyes. Israel was trying to kill thousands of people, he claimed.
The blasts were hugely embarrassing for Hezbollah and may have been designed to inflict a psychological blow. Israeli analysts have said the explosions will probably make it harder for the Shiite organization’s leaders and commanders to communicate, since they will fear more of their devices have been sabotaged.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his country would ask the United Nations Security Council, which is set to meet Friday to discuss the situation, for a resolution to deter Israel from such attacks.
The premier as well as Speaker Nabih Berri, Hezbollah’s main political ally in Lebanon, received calls from French President Emmanuel Macron, according to state-run media.
Hezbollah members often used pagers and walkie-talkies — gadgets considered obsolete in much of the world — because they were viewed as harder for Israeli security services to infiltrate given their low-tech nature. Speculation is rife about how the blasts were orchestrated — many cybersecurity experts say it’s likely explosives were planted inside the devices.
--With assistance from Dan Williams.
(Updates with latest military action in fourth paragraph, Iranian comment in seventh.)
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