Hezbollah chief’s big warning to Israel, calls pager blasts ‘declaration of war’

Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has warned Israel after the pager blasts, saying this could be called a “declaration of war”.

In a televised speech on Thursday, Nasrallah said that the militant group was dealt an unprecedented blow in all its history. He admitted that more than 4,000 pagers were distributed to Hezbollah members, which exploded simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday night, for which the armed group has blamed Israel.

“Israel violated red lines by detonating thousands of pagers,” Nasrallah said. As Nasrallah’s speech was being televised in Lebanon, Israel launched a full-scale attack targetting several Hezbollah locations.

At least 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 were wounded after pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday. A similar attack happened the very next day as other low-tech communication devices used by the group such as walkie-talkies exploded, leaving over 20 people dead.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said that some of the people killed in walkie-talkie blasts were attending funerals of pager blast victims.

Notably, Hezbollah had instructed its members to avoid mobile phones after the Gaza war began and to rely instead on its own telecommunications system to prevent Israeli breaches. Lebanese internal security forces said a number of wireless communication devices were detonated across the country, especially in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Hezbollah has accused Israel of carrying out the back-to-back attacks, vowing retaliation against Tel Aviv.

Although Israel has not formally admitted to the attacks, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told the country’s army about a “new phase in the war” a day after the pager blasts. Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza war erupted last October, the worst such escalation in years.