Israeli military strikes Hezbollah as its chief responds to wave of device blasts in Lebanon

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military launched a new wave of attacks against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Thursday, after two days of device explosions that left the Middle East fearing all-out war.

The attack on southern Lebanon involved airstrikes and artillery but Israeli ground forces had not crossed the border, an Israeli official told NBC News.

The Israel Defense Forces announced the strikes — which it said were aimed at degrading the group’s “capabilities and infrastructure” —  just as the leader of the Iran-backed militant and political group began a much-anticipated response to the stunning attacks using walkie-talkies and pagers.

At least 37 people, including two children, were killed and thousands more injured across Lebanon, the country’s health minister said early Thursday — a rising toll from the wave of attacks that left the country reeling and the region on the brink.

As the world urged against further escalation after months of devastating war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel indicated its focus had shifted to its northern border with Lebanon, declaring a “new phase” to its simmering monthslong conflict with Hezbollah.

The attacks left a trail from Taiwan to Hungary that reached the doors of a walkie-talkie maker in Japan and a company in Bulgaria on Thursday. But in Lebanon, Hezbollah has been left in disarray and all eyes were on its leader Hassan Nasrallah’s speech. The attacks have also rattled an already beleaguered country, with hospitals overwhelmed and the public fearful that mobile phones or other devices may explode. 

The Lebanese Army said Thursday that specialized units were detonating “pagers and suspicious communication devices in various areas,” warning the public to stay away from the blast sites and report any suspicious devices without approaching them.

The Israeli military said it was “operating to bring security to northern Israel in order to enable the return of residents to their homes, as well as to achieve of all of the war goals.”

In northern Israel earlier Thursday, at least eight people were injured by anti-tank fire from across the Lebanon border, health authorities said.

An Israeli official told NBC News that Israel’s current attack in southern Lebanon involves airstrikes and artillery but its ground forces have not crossed the border.

“The ‘center of gravity’ is moving northward — resources and forces are being allocated [to this front],” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said a day earlier in an address at an air base, without mentioning the explosions. “We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance on our part,” he said.

Gallant, in a separate post on X, said he spoke with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin overnight, briefing him on “IDF operations in the southern and northern arenas, focusing on Israel’s defense against Hezbollah threats.”

Two U.S. officials told NBC News that Israel told its ally it was going to do something in Lebanon, but they did not give any details, and that the U.S. was caught by surprise when the reports of the pager attacks emerged Tuesday. 

While Israel has not taken responsibility for the attacks, the militant group and Lebanese officials also pinned the blame on Israel.

The country’s foreign minister, Abdallah Rashid Bouhabib, was set to participate in an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council in New York on Friday. 

Exploding devices leave a trail from Taiwan to Bulgaria

Lebanon’s civil aviation agency Thursday directed all airlines flying out of its main airport in Beirut to prohibit passengers from transporting pagers and walkie-talkies, the state news agency NNA reported. 

The agency also prohibited their transportation via freight cargo.

The Lebanese Telecommunications Ministry identified the exploding devices Wednesday as Icom V82s, a type of handheld walkie-talkie.

Osaka-based Icom said Thursday that it had not shipped that model for 10 years after it ceased production of the unit.

“There’s no way a bomb could have been integrated into one of our devices during manufacturing,” Yoshiki Enomoto, a director at ICOM, said outside the company’s headquarters Thursday.

“The process is highly automated and fast-paced, so there’s no time for such things,” he told Reuters.

Enomoto added that the company cannot confirm if the devices shipped by Icom to the Middle East a decade ago were involved in the explosions because it didn’t put any hologram stickers on them, a common way of verifying the authenticity of products.

Icom’s website lists the V82 as one of its most counterfeited products. 

“No parts other than those specified by our company are used in a product,” Icom said in a statement. The firm declined NBC News’ request for further comment.

As authorities across the world scrambled to track how the devices that exploded made their way into the hands of Hezbollah, Bulgaria’s state news agency said Thursday that the country was investigating the possible involvement of a company registered there, without directly naming it.

Images of the pagers bore the name of a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, Gold Apollo, which said the devices were made by a Hungarian firm, BAC Consulting, that it said was authorized to use Gold Apollo’s logo for product sales in certain regions, “but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC.”

Whether original Gold Apollo products were tampered with, or entirely fake ones manufactured, was still being investigated, a spokesperson for the Taiwanese Economic Affairs Ministry told NBC News.

Hungarian officials said that BAC Consulting was just a trading intermediary and that none of the pagers had been inside the country.

The company’s chief executive, Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday that her company worked with Gold Apollo. But when asked about the pagers, she said over the phone, “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong.”

Bársony-Arcidiacono has since not responded to requests for further comment.

Raf Sanchez reported from Tel Aviv, Mithil Aggarwal reported from Hong Kong, and Yuliya Talmazan from London.