Israel launches strikes against Hezbollah after several explosive devices explode

LONDON — Israel launched a series of strikes against Hezbollah targets on Thursday as the war against the Lebanon-based group widened following two consecutive days of explosions triggered by wireless devices.

“The Israeli army is currently striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon to weaken its terrorist capabilities and infrastructure,” the Israeli military said. “The Hezbollah terrorist organization has turned southern Lebanon into a combat zone. For decades, Hezbollah has militarized civilian homes, dug tunnels under them, and used civilians as human shields.”

The threat of a wider war looms on the border between Israel and Lebanon. In the past two days, remotely detonated explosions with explosives contained in pagers or walkie-talkies have killed at least 37 people and injured 2,931, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Al-Abyad said at a news conference on Thursday.

Before announcing the strikes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his intention to return tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to their homes in the north of the country, parts of which have been emptied by the threat of Hezbollah attacks.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the “center of gravity” of Israel’s 11-month war against Hamas and its supporters is “shifting” from the Gaza Strip to the northern border with Lebanon.

Israeli rhetoric was punctuated by the two waves of explosions in Lebanon.

Pagers exploded Tuesday, causing chaos in Beirut and the south of the country, a stronghold of Hezbollah. On Wednesday, walkie-talkies exploded, some during funeral processions for militants killed in Tuesday’s blasts.

An ABC News source confirmed that Israel was behind Tuesday’s attacks. Israeli leaders have not publicly commented on either series of explosions.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said 12 people were killed and 2,323 injured in Tuesday’s pager blasts, and another 25 people were killed and 608 injured in Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions, according to Al-Abyad.

The Lebanese health minister told reporters that he did not want to comment on security and political issues, but he said: “Certainly what happened in terms of aggression is considered a war crime, because the majority of injuries were recorded in civilian areas and not on the battlefield, and the government is doing its duty and has called a meeting of the UN Security Council, and human rights organizations are doing their duty on this issue.”

Hezbollah said 20 of its members were killed in walkie-talkie explosions on Wednesday. Eleven more were killed in pager explosions in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, bringing the group’s total death toll to 31.

The Iran-backed group has blamed Israel for both waves of explosions and vowed accountability. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to address the situation in a public speech Thursday afternoon.

The militant group has claimed several retaliatory strikes against Israel this week – including early Thursday – that were responded to by Israel Defense Forces warplanes and artillery.

Cross-border fire has been almost constant since October 8, when Hezbollah began its attacks in protest of the Israel Defense Forces’ operation in the Gaza Strip – in response to Hamas’ infiltration attack in southern Israel on October 7.

But as Gallant told reporters Wednesday, “I believe we are at the beginning of a new phase of this war.”

A source confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that Israel’s 98th Division was being deployed from the Gaza battlefields to the north of the country.

“We are determined to change the security reality as quickly as possible,” said Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, head of the IDF’s Northern Command. “The commitment of the commanders and troops here is total, with maximum preparation for any task that will be required.”

U.S. officials have long warned that this war could escalate into a broader conflict involving Iran, the main benefactor of Hezbollah and Hamas.

The heavy losses demonstrated the multinational nature of the crisis. A pager explosion injured at least 14 people in Syria, where Hezbollah and Iranian forces have been active for several years in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, was also among the thousands injured, Iranian officials said. Tehran “will take appropriate measures to address the attack on its ambassador to Lebanon,” the country’s ambassador to the United Nations said in a letter to U.N. leaders on Wednesday.

Israel and Iran have already exchanged major strikes since October 7. In April, Israel assassinated a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and in July, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran fired a massive salvo of drones and missiles toward Israel in response to Zahedi’s assassination.

This week’s attacks in Lebanon raise the possibility of further action, whether overt or covert. Police announced Thursday the arrest of an Israeli citizen suspected of collaborating with Iranian intelligence to assassinate leaders including Netanyahu and Gallant.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated U.S. calls for calm at a news conference Wednesday in Egypt, where he traveled for renewed ceasefire talks in Gaza.

“Generally speaking, we have been very clear, and we remain very clear, about the importance for all parties to avoid any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we are trying to resolve in Gaza,” Blinken said.

A conflict that spills over to other fronts, he added, is “clearly not in the interests of any of the parties involved.”

The United States, Blinken and other American officials said, was not involved in or given prior notice of the remote explosions that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Gallant spoke with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin three times in two days, with the last conversation on Wednesday reaffirming the United States’ “unwavering support for Israel in the face of threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran’s other regional partners” and the need for de-escalation, according to a Pentagon readout.

U.S. officials were briefed by their Israeli counterparts on Tuesday that they were planning an operation against Hezbollah, but provided no details on what they would do, U.S. officials said.

ABC News’ Ghazi Balkiz, Will Gretsky, Morgan Winsor, Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston, Ellie Kaufman, Nasser Atta and Jordana Miller contributed to this report.