CNN
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Israel said on Wednesday that a “new era” of warfare had begun, a tacit acknowledgement of its role in a shocking dual attack targeting Hezbollah that has again brought the Middle East to the brink of wider conflict.
Nearly 24 hours after an explosion targeting a Hezbollah member’s pager killed several people, including a child, and injured more than 2,800, Lebanon was hit by further deadly explosions, including walkie-talkie explosions in Beirut and southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 20 people were killed and more than 450 were injured in Wednesday’s explosion.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declined to comment on Tuesday’s explosion but appeared to address the attack during a visit to Ramat David Air Base in northern Israel on Wednesday.
“We are at the dawn of a new era in this war and we need to adapt,” said Gallant, who praised the “great work” of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Shin Bet security service and the Mossad intelligence agency.
CNN previously reported that Tuesday’s operation was a joint operation between the Israel Defense Forces and Mossad, but Gallant’s comments mark the first time an Israeli official has acknowledged Israel’s role in the dual attack.
An Israeli source familiar with national security later told CNN that Israel believed Hezbollah had discovered the capability and launched its pager attacks in a “use it or lose it” moment.
The pager explosion came hours after Israel voted on Monday to add a new war objective to its conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah: allowing residents of communities along the Lebanese border to return safely to their homes.
Nearly a year of exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel has forced tens of thousands of people to flee southern Lebanon and northern Israel, and while bringing them back has long been seen as a political necessity for the Israeli government, this is the first time it has been made an official war objective.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated his commitment to “allow the safe return of residents of the north to their homes.”
A source familiar with the matter told CNN that the IDF is moving its elite 98th Division from Gaza to northern Israel. “The center of gravity is shifting to the north,” Gallant said. “That means we’re directing our forces, our resources, our energy to the north.”
Dozens of Lebanese Red Cross emergency personnel were working to rescue and evacuate the injured after walkie-talkie explosions occurred across Lebanon on Wednesday.
Witnesses attending a Hezbollah funeral in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday said a walkie-talkie appeared to explode around 5pm local time (10am Eastern Time), sparking chaos.
A witness, who cannot be named for safety reasons, told CNN he heard a loud explosion followed by screaming and found the man covered in blood and with both his hands blown off after his radio equipment exploded.
Meanwhile, photos were also released of a walkie-talkie destroyed in the explosion.
The Lebanese Civil Defense said it was working to extinguish 60 fires in homes and shops that broke out after the walkie-talkie explosion, including one at a lithium battery store.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Communications said the walkie-talkies were a discontinued model made by Japan’s Icom Co. It said the IC-V82 devices were not supplied by an authorized dealer, were not officially licensed and had not been inspected by security authorities.
ICOM said in a statement on Wednesday that it was investigating the reports. The company’s website said the IC-V82 is a discontinued model and that nearly all such devices in circulation are counterfeit.
Hezbollah vowed to respond to an Israeli pager attack that killed at least 12 people and injured thousands across Lebanon on Tuesday. Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said at least two children were killed in the explosion.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the pager attacks violated international humanitarian law, which bans the use of booby traps – those likely to attract civilians or associated with everyday civilian use – and called for an “independent, thorough and transparent investigation.”
Speculation is rife about how the low-tech wireless communication devices might have been misused, as well as their origins and mysterious supply chain that stretches from Taiwan to Hungary. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Israel had hidden explosives in a batch of pagers it had ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo and was destined for Hezbollah, adding that they had been fitted with a switch that could be used to detonate them remotely.
Gold Apollo, however, denied producing any pagers under its own brand, citing a distributor registered in Budapest as the manufacturer. Hungarian authorities denied Gold Apollo’s claims, saying BAC Consulting was a “trade intermediary” with no manufacturing facility in Hungary.
The unprecedented attack and Wednesday’s new explosions threaten to further escalate tensions in the Middle East, already heightened by the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries to avoid further escalation, saying the “logic” of detonating all the explosive devices was “a pre-emptive strike before a major military operation”.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib told CNN he feared the attacks signaled a move towards “the start of war.”
“This is a terrible moment and we fear we will descend into war because we do not want war,” he said, calling on the UN Security Council and the United States to help restore peace along the Lebanese-Israeli border.
CNN intelligence and security analyst Bob Baer also suggested that Israel’s decision to cut off Hezbollah’s communications networks could lead to an imminent military attack on Lebanon.
“The fact that Israel has penetrated their supply network is unprecedented,” Baer said, stressing that the disruption of Hezbollah’s use of walkie-talkies is particularly damaging because the group relies on them to call out fire coordinates, move munitions and communicate in real time.
This leaves Hezbollah in a vulnerable position if Israel goes ahead with its military plans.
This is a developing story and will be updated.