JUST IN: Nine Killed, Hundreds Wounded in New Round of Exploding Hezbollah-Linked Devices in Lebanon

AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari

After hundreds of Hezbollah fighters were injured and some were killed by exploding pagers in Lebanon on Tuesday, a second wave of exploding devices reportedly killed nine people and injured hundreds more.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that “walkie-talkies and even solar equipment being targeted a day after hundreds of pagers blew up.” As in the first attack, Hezbollah fighters were apparently the target:

A Hezbollah official told the AP that walkie-talkies used by the group exploded. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Lebanon’s official news agency reports that solar energy systems exploded in homes in several areas of Beirut and in southern Lebanon, wounding at least one girl.

Regarding the solar panel systems, The Guardian wrote, “Pictures of exploded solar panels, fingerprint readers and other devices circulated social media, though it was unclear whether they blew up by themselves or were near walkie-talkies that exploded.”

The targeting of walkie-talkies, however, appeared to be a multi-staged pre-planned attack Hezbollah communications, which was pointed out by Wall Street Journal chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov. “Blow up pagers, force the surviving Hezbollah cadres to rely on walkie talkies, and then blow up the much bigger explosive devices inside the walkie talkies. A TV spy series producers would rule out this twist plot as impossible to believe in,” Trofimov commented on X. According to the AP, at least 300 were injured in the second wave of the attack — along with the 9 fatalities. The latest death toll from the first attack rose to 12, including two children, and some 3,000 were reported injured.

While no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Israel appears to be the likely culprit — but it has not and likely will not publicly take responsibility. Hezbollah and the government of Lebanon both openly blamed Israel following the attack on Tuesday. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging across-border fire since the devasting  October 7th attack in southern Israel. A Hezbollah rocket hit a Druze town in northern Israel in July, killing 12 children on a soccer field.

This story has been updated.