The Israeli army announced on Thursday that it had bombed seven Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, increasing pressure on the Lebanese movement in the wake of a series of deadly explosions attributed to Israel that targeted its transmission systems.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed movement and an ally of the Palestinian Hamas, will speak at 5 p.m. (10 a.m. EDT) on the explosions that killed 37 people and injured nearly 3,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday, heightening fears of a full-scale war in the Middle East.
Israel has not commented on the attacks, which came just after it announced it was expanding its war aims against the Palestinian Hamas – backed by Hezbollah – to the northern border with Lebanon, to allow the return of displaced people in the north of the country.
Its army announced on Thursday that it had carried out night strikes on six Hezbollah “infrastructure sites” and an arms depot in southern Lebanon.
On Tuesday, simultaneous explosions of pagers, a radio messaging system used by the Islamist movement, took place in Hezbollah strongholds in the southern suburbs, east and south of Lebanon.
They left 12 dead and hundreds injured, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
“Center of gravity”
The following day, a second wave of explosions “targeting walkie-talkies” left 25 dead, according to a new report from the ministry on Thursday, bringing the total number of victims of the detonations over two days to 37 dead and 2,931 injured.
Hezbollah on Thursday deplored the death of 20 of its members killed, according to a source close to the movement, in “walkie-talkie explosions.”
The explosions of the last two days are the “biggest blow ever dealt to the pro-Iranian formation” by Israel, according to a source close to Hezbollah.
Devices were detonated simultaneously while Hezbollah members were at home, shopping or attending funerals.
The main objectives displayed so far by Israel have been the destruction of Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007, and the return of hostages held in the Palestinian territory since the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil, which triggered the war in Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that the “center of gravity” of the war is moving “toward the north” where the almost daily deadly exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since October have led to the displacement of tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border.
“Extremely worrying escalation”
“We are carrying out our tasks simultaneously” in the north and the south, and “our task is clear: to ensure the safe return of the northerners to their homes,” Gallant stressed.
Charles Lister, an expert at the Middle East Institute, estimated that “the Mossad (Israeli foreign intelligence service) has infiltrated the supply chain” of Hezbollah.
According to a preliminary investigation by Lebanese authorities, “the devices were pre-programmed to explode and contained explosive materials,” a Lebanese security official told AFP.
On Thursday, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the UN Security Council, which is meeting urgently on Friday to discuss the deadly explosions in Lebanon, to “take a firm stance by stopping Israel’s aggression against Lebanon and the technological war it is waging.”
Turkey accused “Israel of extending the war to Lebanon”, while Berlin, the United Nations and Washington warned against an “escalation”.
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Meeting in Paris
Representatives of American, French, German, Italian and British diplomacy were due to meet in Paris on Thursday to take stock of the status of negotiations for a truce in Gaza and the situation in Lebanon.
During a brief visit to Cairo on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel and Hamas to show “political will” to reach a ceasefire agreement after months of fruitless negotiations.
Meanwhile, the war continues unabated in the besieged Palestinian territory, which is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe.
Five Palestinians were killed in an overnight strike on an apartment in Gaza City, according to the Civil Defense in Gaza. Two others were killed in the bombing of a house in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the same source said.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas commandos carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 97 are still being held in Gaza, 33 of whom have been declared dead by the army.
More than 41,272 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in the Gaza Strip, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.