The reported blasts come one day after thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah exploded in an apparent Israeli operation
Walkie talkies used by the Hezbollah paramilitary group simultaneously exploded throughout Lebanon on Wednesday in a continuation of an apparent sabotage operation by Israel that killed 12 people and wounded thousands on Tuesday.
The blasts were first reported by Lebanese media, with al-Hadath TV network claiming that at least 100 people had been injured. A Lebanese security source told Reuters that handheld radios used by Hezbollah members exploded in Beirut and throughout southern Lebanon, a region controlled by the paramilitary force.
At least one of the explosions took place at a funeral procession for four people who were killed when their pagers exploded on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
At least a dozen people were killed, including two children, and more than 3,000 were injured when their pagers – a low-tech and supposedly secure method of communication – spontaneously detonated on Tuesday. Lebanese security officials blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, while US and Israeli sources told Axios that Mossad had indeed rigged the devices to explode several months ago.
Mossad planned to blow up the pagers in the event of an all-out war with Hezbollah, but decided to detonate them early in case the explosive charges were discovered, an American official told Axios.
The handheld radios that exploded on Wednesday were purchased in bulk at the same time as the pagers that detonated on Tuesday, a security source told Reuters.
