New Wave Of Blasts Rock Beirut For 2nd Day: Hand-Held Radios Explode, Over 100 Wounded

Axios and regional media are reporting a new wave of blasts in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, including explosions in the south of the country.

Israel has reportedly detonated hand-held personal radios used by Hezbollah members, the emerging reports say. The prominent regional news source War Monitor writes “Communications devices that exploded across Lebanon moments ago are hand-held radios, different to pagers that exploded on Tuesday, Security sources informed me.”

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV is also confirming wireless devices exploded in the hands of those carrying them in several Lebanese areas. There are reports of at least three new fatalities and over 100 injured in this second day of explosions.

Several ambulances have been witnessed rushing to the scenes of multiple new blasts. It appears the Israeli covert operation to sow chaos within Hezbollah’s ranks is not over.

This comes after the group said it would be checking and inspecting all externally shipped-in electronic devices, considering it’s clear at this point the pagers were manipulated by Israeli intelligence.

#BREAKING
🚨‼️ Initial reports indicate that wireless devices have exploded again few minutes ago in several areas of the suburbs of #Beirut and in south of Lebanon.#LebanonUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/nhbtnF42cL

— Rula El Halabi (@Rulaelhalabi) September 18, 2024

Ironically, Hezbollah relied on encrypted pagers in the first place because older tech was considered immune from Israeli intercepts. Governments and intelligence services can more easily sweep up cell communications. However, it has become clear that Israel has deeply penetrated Hezbollah telecoms in a very direct way:

Jody Westby of Global Cyber Risk says Hezbollah relied on “old technology” because it thought it would make its members’ lines of communication more secure.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Washington, DC, Westby said Hezbollah used the pagers because they are more difficult to intercept and it is harder to trace the communications passed through them.

“This is digital warfare. What they did was take out a line of communication for Hezbollah. Clearly, it was planted, planned and it was effective. I wouldn’t call it a weapon of mass destruction. I would just call it an autonomous weapon, an executed military action,” she said.

Axios’ Barak Ravid is reporting Wednesday, “Israel blew up thousands of personal radios (Walkie-Talkies) which were used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon in a second wave of its intelligence operation which started on Tuesday with the explosions of Hezbollah pager devices, per two sources with knowledge.”

Footage purportedly shows the moment a Hezbollah walkie-talkie exploded during a funeral in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut. https://t.co/3Qpkdgcjcy pic.twitter.com/BfzeeYykfL

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 18, 2024

Below are more eyewitness reports from Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground in south Beirut:

We can confirm that there was at least one explosion in Dahiya neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut. We’re at Hamra, which is sometimes referred to as the hospital area – there are three hospitals very close to each other.

Now we are hearing a lot of ambulance activity in the area suggesting there may be well casualties coming here or other hospitals nearby,  possibly as a result of explosions within Beirut itself.

A car bomb has also reportedly gone off in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

Yaroslav Trofimov writes pretty much what everyone is thinking: “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.”

War correspondent Elijah Magnier says this appears a prelude to a major Israeli military operation in Lebanon: “Normally in every war, the first attack is on a command-control base, and here the Israelis are attacking the control, which is the communication. Crippling communication is vital in any war because it is the main spine of the [enemy] army.”

developing…