The Walkie-talkies exploded in the new attack on Hezbollah

The Israeli Attacks on Tuesday: The Case for the Hezbollah Campaign in Lebanon and a “Strategic Threat to Israel”

Daniel Estrin reported from Tel Aviv. Itay Stern and Shir David contributed to this report from Tel Aviv. Tom made a contribution from Washington.

“After Haniyeh’s elimination, Iranians were talking about retaliating, Orna is a Hezbollah watcher and senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies,” she said. “The Iranians may have a bigger appetite to do something after this action.”

“You cannot go to war while your house is not protected,” Al Sabaileh said. Going to war in such conditions could be asuicide recipe for Hezbollah because you don’t know the level of infiltration and how Israel is going to surprise you.

“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 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 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.”

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.

Israel’s response to the attack on Hezbollah’s mobile pagers, a statement by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant

The Hezbollah group told NPR that they gave these pagers out to their militant operatives. 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.

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

Israel has not explicitly taken responsibility for this week’s attacks on Hezbollah’s communications devices. An official with the US government told NPR that Israel notified Washington that it had carried out Tuesday’s attacks.

The blast in Lebanon killed 14 people and wounded 450, according to health officials.

The new explosions took place barely a day after 12 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 3000 injured in parts of Syria in a pager blast.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant talked about “excellent achievements” by Israel’s military and intelligence branches but did not mention device attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Hezbollah group had begun to fear that it would be spied on prior to this week’s blasts.

“Please break it, bury it, lock it up in a metal box,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech then. It can be done for a week, two weeks, and a month. These are the most dangerous spies.

Solar System Attacks on the Lebanese: Two Hours After the Detonations – Comments on the News Agency in Lebanon

The official news agency in Lebanon reported that home solar system exploded within two hours after the detonations began. At the time of publication, details of the alleged solar equipment attacks were still developing.

At least 32 people have died in the attacks, a significant number of which Hezbollah confirmed as members, although children and health workers were among the dead. Many of the people wounded in the attacks had their hands or face injured.

On Wednesday photos and videos posted to social media appeared to show walkie-talkies in various states of destruction. In many of the images, the larger devices had one side removed to make them smaller. Middle East experts cited media reports that said cars, scooters, and buildings seem to have been damaged by tampered devices.

Some people hurried to disconnect their appliances. Others unplugged the inverters and solar systems powering their homes. Many kept their cellphones away from them and refused to answer calls. People in Lebanon viewed baby monitors, TVs and laptops with suspicion. Could they be the next devices to unexpectedly explode?

“Maybe tomorrow lighters will explode, too,” said Hussein Awada, 54, who works as a private driver. The cigarette will explode in your hand if you start smoking.

The first attack of General Reissner-Nambu-Zahieh was beyond catastrophe, according to Awada

The preparation for Hezbollah’s attack was like a work of fiction according to Mr. Awada.

Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by both the United States and Israel. But for many Lebanese, it is an organization with deep roots in society, providing a roster of social services and welfare programs across the country in the place of the ailing state.

“In Dahieh, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t know someone who was affected,” said Mortada Smaoui, 30, a local business owner, using the Arabic name for Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs. It’s either your friend, or a relative or a friend, so you can clearly feel the sad and angry feelings.

Mr. Smaoui went to the closest hospital after the first attack to get some blood. There he witnessed the chaos firsthand: bodies being carried away in blood-soaked sheets, family members frantically searching for their loved ones and the wails of injured victims who were being turned away because of a lack of beds.

Still, Mr. Smaoui said after the first attack that it had shown Lebanon at its best, with citizens from across the country’s sectarian patchwork coming together to clear roads and give blood, so much so that hospitals had to turn away prospective donors.

“There are buildings burning right now in front of me,” Mr. Smaoui said in the minutes after the second round of explosions, staring up at an apartment block engulfed in flames.

Dr. Salah Zeineddine, the chief medical officer at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, said the attacks were “beyond any catastrophe” he had dealt with before. In three hours, nearly 200 patients were rushed into the hospital after the first wave of explosions.