‘An Act of War’
People watch a televised address by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah while at a cafe in a southern suburb of Beirut on Sept. 19.Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel in a public address on Thursday of “willfully” aiming to kill thousands of people across Lebanon via remote attacks on the group’s electronic devices. At least 37 people were killed and around 3,000 others wounded after hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah detonated on Tuesday and hundreds more of the group’s walkie-talkies exploded on Wednesday.
The attacks were “a major assault on Lebanon, its security and sovereignty, a war crime—an act of war,” Nasrallah said. He accused Israel of transgressing “all boundaries and red lines” and vowed to exact “a severe reckoning and just retribution,” though he did not specify what that might entail. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks, but officials widely believe that the country’s military and external intelligence agency, Mossad, carried them out. The Lebanese army said on Thursday that it is still identifying and neutralizing “suspicious” communications devices across the country.
Israeli and Hezbollah forces also launched a new round of tit-for-tat strikes across their embattled border on Thursday. Israel flew warplanes over Beirut right as Nasrallah delivered his speech and bombed suspected militant targets across southern Lebanon, including an alleged Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the Lebanese town of Khiam. In response, Hezbollah attacked what it said were military targets in Israel’s north. At least two Israeli soldiers were killed in the strikes.
As fears of an all-out war rise, foreign leaders and officials have called on both sides to exercise restraint, with some denouncing Israel’s recent actions. On Wednesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Riyadh will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel before the “establishment of a Palestinian state” with East Jerusalem as its capital. Mohammed bin Salman was the first Saudi leader to publicly discuss opening ties with Israel after Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco signed similar agreements with Israel in 2020. But the war in Gaza and recent actions in Lebanon appear to have hardened his position.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to take a firm stand against Israel’s “technological war” when the body convenes in New York on Friday. The U.N. General Assembly voted 124-14 (with 43 abstentions) on Wednesday in favor of a Palestinian resolution calling for Israel to end its “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the West Bank within a year. Unlike a U.N. Security Council resolution, though, the General Assembly’s vote is not legally binding.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin postponed a trip to the region, planned for early next week, due to escalated fighting along the border, two Israeli officials told Axios, while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged for all parties to show restraint.
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Israel’s chief of the general staff, had “completed approval of plans for the northern arena”—one day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said a “new era” in Israel’s war effort was just beginning.