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Israeli planes bomb southern Lebanon after radio blasts

Israel bombed southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had thwarted an Iranian-led assassination plot, a day after explosions of Hezbollah radios that came on the heels of blasts in booby trapped pagers, Reuters reports.

The sophisticated attacks on armed group Hezbollah’s communications equipment, which killed 37 people and wounded around 3,000 over two days, sowed disarray in Lebanon, with panicked residents abandoning their mobile phones.

According to Reuters, a distant roar in the skies could be heard in Beirut from what Lebanese state media said was Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier – a sound that has grown increasingly common in recent months.

Israel said its warplanes struck villages in southern Lebanon overnight, and a security source and Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV reported airstrikes near the border resumed on Thursday just after midday.

Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south. The Lebanese health minister raised the death toll, saying 25 people had been killed and 608 injured in the country’s deadliest day since cross-border fighting erupted between the militants and Israel in parallel with the Gaza war last year.

The previous day, hundreds of pagers – used by Hezbollah to evade mobile phone surveillance – exploded at once, killing 12 people including two children, and injuring more than 2,300.

In a post on X, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the United Nations Security Council to take a firm stand to stop Israel’s “aggression” and “technological war” against his country.

Israel has not commented directly on the booby-trapped walkie-talkies and pagers, but multiple security sources have said the attacks were carried out by its spy agency Mossad.

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