Another wave of blasts hits Lebanon, as Hezbollah reels from pager explosions

In this photo, an ambulance believed to be carrying wounded people drives down a street in a southern suburb of Beirut on September 18, 2024. The ambulance is white with a blue light on top that spans the width of the vehicle. Men stand on the sides of the street, which is lined with buildings. — An ambulance believed to be carrying wounded people — after multiple explosions were heard during the funeral of four Hezbollah fighters who were killed Tuesday after their pagers exploded — drives down a street in a southern suburb of Beirut on Wednesday.
Bilal Hussein/AP

BEIRUT, Lebanon, and TEL AVIV, Israel — A fresh wave of explosions in communications devices struck Lebanon on Wednesday, leaving 14 people dead and 450 wounded, according to Lebanese health officials.

The new explosions took place barely 24 hours after the near-synchronized pager blasts on Tuesday that left 12 people dead and nearly 3,000 injured in Lebanon and parts of Syria.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke on Wednesday about "excellent achievements" by Israel's military and intelligence branches leading to "impressive results," but without mentioning the device attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We are at the beginning of a new era in this war," Gallant said, adding that the "center of gravity is moving north."

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The latest incident came as the Lebanese militia Hezbollah vowed that Israel will face punishment for Tuesday's attacks, further raising fears among analysts that the region may be pushed to an all-out war that the United States has been trying to prevent.

Israel has not explicitly taken responsibility for this week's attacks on Hezbollah's communications devices. But a U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak to reporters, told NPR that Israel notified Washington that it had carried out Tuesday's attacks.

Hezbollah had long been preparing for digital interceptions, which led it to use pagers

Even before this week's blasts, which injured and claimed the lives of Hezbollah operatives, the group had already feared spying of its digital devices.

From his hideout somewhere in Lebanon, the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in February warned his followers: Get rid of your cellphones.

"Please break it, bury it, lock it up in a metal box," Nasrallah said in a televised speech then. "Do it for a week, two weeks, a month. ... These are deadly spies."

Fearing that Israeli intelligence had infiltrated Hezbollah's communications, Hezbollah officials adopted old-fashioned handheld beepers, security experts say.

A second wave of explosions of wireless devices ripped through Beirut on Wednesday afternoon, including at a funeral for Hezbollah members and a child killed in Tuesday's explosions, Hezbollah said.

This photo, taken September 18, 2024, in Beirut's southern suburbs, shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. The remains are primarily black and look like damaged fragments of electronic devices. — This photo, taken Wednesday in Beirut's southern suburbs, shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people and wounding around 2,800 in blasts that the Iranian-backed militant group blames on Israel.
AFP/Getty Images

Hezbollah adopted pagers in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks

A day after the Hamas-led attack on Israel last Oct. 7, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia began firing rockets across the Lebanon-Israel border into northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas. Israel has since regularly targeted Hezbollah militants and weapons stockpiles, as the two sides trade attacks daily.

Between January and February, Hezbollah stopped using smartphones and adopted pagers to avoid Israeli surveillance, said Amer Al Sabaileh, a Jordanian geopolitical analyst and security expert with contacts inside Hezbollah.

"It's not limited just for specific cells inside Hezbollah. It started to be the common method of communication," Al Sabaileh said.

Hezbollah handed these pagers out among its militant operatives as well as its civilian functionaries, the group told NPR. Four health care workers, including one working at a Hezbollah-affiliated hospital, an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy were among those killed, Lebanon's acting health minister said. Hezbollah is a political party in Lebanon as well as an armed militia.

What Israel may gain from the mysterious explosions

In the days leading up to Tuesday's pagers operation, Israel's leadership had publicly warned that only military action could stop Hezbollah's attacks and allow Israeli civilians to return to their homes near the border with Lebanon.

Some Israeli columnists praised the explosions as an operational success but reported that Israel had not originally planned to detonate the devices now but did so out of concern that information might leak and compromise the mission.

"Officials in Jerusalem, within the defense establishment, and several experts, argue that the current timing should be leveraged to launch a comprehensive campaign in Lebanon," wrote veteran war correspondent Ron Ben-Yishay on the Israeli news site Ynet. "This campaign could destroy a significant portion of Hezbollah's missile and other capabilities, acquired with Iranian assistance, which pose a serious threat to Israel's home front."

The strike also drew domestic criticism.

"Israel might be dreaming of reestablishing a 'security zone' in Lebanon, or replicating the 'perimeter' tactic — creating a buffer zone around the Gaza Strip — to push back the threat," wrote columnist Zvi Bar'el in the left-leaning Haaretz. "This would imply a long-term occupation inside Lebanon, repeating the same mistake and expecting different results."

A Lebanese army soldier gestures with one hand at the scene of a reported pager explosion in Sidon, in southern Lebanon, on September 18, 2024. Standing in the street, the soldier is wearing a camouflage-patterned uniform and is holding a firearm. People are standing a short distance behind him. Cars, buildings and trees also appear in the background. — A Lebanese army soldier gestures at the scene of a reported pager explosion in Sidon, in southern Lebanon, on Wednesday. A second wave of deadly device explosions struck in Hezbollah strongholds of Lebanon, raising fears of an all-out war between Israel and the Iranian-backed militants.
Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images

Hezbollah and Iran may retaliate but perhaps not soon

Hezbollah has vowed that Israel will face punishment for the attacks. It has not specified what form that punishment could take. But the group's capacity to initiate an all-out war has been severely limited, security experts say.

Hezbollah's communications have been hijacked. Thousands of operatives and functionaries are wounded. And there is likely deep suspicion within the group's ranks that could spark internal probes into who may have collaborated with Israel to booby-trap the pagers and other devices.

"You cannot go to war while your house is not protected," Al Sabaileh said. "You don't know the level of infiltration and what next surprise Israel is preparing for you, and this means that going to war in such conditions might be a suicide recipe for Hezbollah."

Iran, whose ambassador to Lebanon was wounded in Tuesday's pager attack, may be motivated to retaliate against Israel following the explosions targeting its Lebanese proxy, especially because it has yet to avenge a July 31 bombing that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in his guest room in the Iranian capital.

"The Iranians are still talking about retaliating after the elimination of Haniyeh," said Orna Mizrahi, a Hezbollah watcher and senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. "The Iranians may have a bigger appetite to do something after this action."

Jawad Rizkallah reported from Beirut, and Daniel Estrin reported from Tel Aviv. Itay Stern and Shir David contributed to this report from Tel Aviv. Tom Bowman contributed from Washington.