Plumes of smoke rise over Beirut as Hezbollah walkie talkies explode

This is the chilling moment the Beirut skyline was darkened by plumes of smoke after thousands of Hezbollah walkie talkies exploded simultaneously.

A dramatic time-lapse video of the city showed large clouds of thick, grey smoke appearing in several different locations with at least one of the blasts taking place near a funeral organised by Hezbollah for three fighters and a child killed yesterday.

Hezbollah's Al Manar TV reported the latest explosions across the city were the deadly result of the hand-held radios detonating -  an incident which has killed nine and injured more than 300, including mourners at today's funeral.

Sources told Lebanese news outlet L'Orient Today that devices were set off inside cars, residential apartments and shops. Motorbike radios and security locks also blew up across Lebanon. 

Many of the wound's suffered in Wednesday's blasts were to the stomach and hands, it was reported. 

It comes just a day after thousands of pagers used by the Iran-backed military group blew up, leaving almost 3,000 people injured and a dozen dead, including civilians and children.

Security sources have now confirmed that hand-held radios in Wednesday's explosions were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, at around the same time as the compromised pagers. Lebanese media has also reported that home solar energy systems have blown up in several areas of Beirut.

The pagers also detonated simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday afternoon.

A Lebanese security source claimed Israel's spy agency Mossad planted explosives in thousands of the devices months before they exploded.

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Sources also revealed to Axios that the booby-trapped devices were intended to be used as a surprise opening blow of an all-out war with Hezbollah before the sabotage operation was fast-tracked due to concerns of it being uncovered. 

Hezbollah has since vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military has not yet made any public comment regarding the blasts. 

A Sky News correspondent at the scene of the Hezbollah-organised funeral said that immediate panic broke out among the mourners after the first detonation was heard.

Alex Crawford said: 'We came out to try and found out what the sound was and people were running. People were covered in blood.

'There was blood on a car.

'One young man was running and he was very stressed. He said a walkie-talkie - which the Hezbollah security people around here are using for the funeral - exploded.

'The Hezbollah people then gathered up all the walkie-talkies and have been taking the batteries out of them.'

According to a report from The Telegraph, Beirut's hospitals were already worryingly at full capacity before the new wave of explosions.

All 12 operating theatres at the American University of Beirut Medical Center were running at full capacity, with several of those injured in yesterday's pager attacks still waiting to undergo surgery.

The centre saw some 190 victims pouring through its doors with severe face and eye injuries as exhausted medics struggled to deal with the influx.

But following this afternoon's attacks, the hospital is again on standby to receive a fresh load of casualties.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets in the first strike against its enemy since the brutal pager blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East War.

Hachem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah's executive council, stated that the Iran-backed group is facing 'a new phase' and that 'the punishment will come'.

The attacks amount to the biggest security breach in Hezbollah's history, with the group and its backers - Iran - condemning Israel and labelling it 'mass murder'.

The repetition of the clandestine attacks, which Israel has not taken responsibility for, will raise already spiking tensions in the region to fever pitch, with Lebanon's foreign minister today warning that the blasts are an omen of a widening war.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned this afternoon that the strikes could be a precursor to a bigger confrontation between Israel and Lebanon.

'The logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a pre-emptive strike before a major military operation,' he said.

'These events confirm that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon and everything must be done to avoid that escalation.'

Hazbollah and Israel have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, fuelling fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could drag in the United States and Iran.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of pushing the Middle East to the brink of a regional war by orchestrating a dangerous escalation on many fronts.

'Hezbollah wants to avoid an all-out war. It still wants to avoid one. But given the scale, the impact on families, on civilians, there will be pressure for a stronger response,' said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

Hezbollah, Iran's most powerful proxy in the Middle East, said in a statement it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and Israel should await a response to the pager 'massacre' which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or dead.

What is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group hit by exploding pagers? 

WHAT ARE HEZBOLLAH'S ORIGINS?

Iran's Revolutionary Guards founded Hezbollah in 1982 during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, part of Tehran's effort to export its 1979 Islamic Revolution and fight Israeli forces that had invaded Lebanon in 1982. The group has risen from a shadowy faction to a heavily armed force with big sway in Lebanon and the region. Western governments including the United States designate it a terrorist group. So do Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia.

Hezbollah is a Shi'ite Islamist group and shares the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

HOW DID HEZBOLLAH GET INVOLVED IN THE GAZA WAR? 

Hezbollah is a powerful part of the 'Axis of Resistance', an alliance of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that also includes the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which ignited the Gaza war by attacking Israel on Oct. 7. Declaring solidarity with the Palestinians, Hezbollah began firing on Israeli positions in the frontier region on Oct. 8. The sides have been trading fire on a near daily basis since then, with Hezbollah launching rockets and drones and Israel mounting air and artillery strikes. The attacks have mostly struck near or at the frontier, but both sides have also widened their attacks.

Tens of thousands have been uprooted in Lebanon and Israel.

HOW POWERFUL IS HEZBOLLAH'S MILITARY?

While other groups disarmed after Lebanon's civil war, Hezbollah kept its weapons to fight Israeli forces that were occupying the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim south of the country. Years of guerrilla warfare led Israel to withdraw in 2000, but Hezbollah retained its arsenal.

Hezbollah demonstrated military advances in 2006 during a five-week war with Israel, which erupted after it crossed into Israel, kidnapping two soldiers and killing others.

Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel during the conflict, in which 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis were killed, most of them soldiers.

Hezbollah's military power grew after 2006. The group says its rockets can strike all parts of Israel and its arsenal includes precision missiles. During the Gaza war, Hezbollah has announced attacks using surface-to-air missiles - a weapon it was long believed to have in its arsenal but had never before confirmed possessing. It has also launched explosive drones at Israel.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said the group has 100,000 fighters. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook says Hezbollah was estimated in 2022 to have 45,000 fighters, split between roughly 20,000 full-time and 25,000 reservists.

WHAT REGIONAL SWAY DOES HEZBOLLAH HAVE?

Hezbollah has inspired and supported other Iranian-backed groups across the region, including Iraqi Shi'ite militias. It played a big part in helping its ally President Bashar al-Assad fight the war in Syria, where it still has fighters. Saudi Arabia says Hezbollah has also fought in support of the Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen. Hezbollah denies this.

WHAT IS HEZBOLLAH'S ROLE IN LEBANON?

Hezbollah's influence is underpinned by both its weaponry and the support of many Lebanese Shi'ites who say the group defends Lebanon from Israel. It has ministers in government and lawmakers in parliament.

Lebanese parties opposed to Hezbollah say the group has undermined the state and unilaterally dragged Lebanon into wars.

It entered Lebanese politics in 1992, contesting elections, and began taking a more prominent role in state affairs in 2005 after Syria withdrew forces from Lebanon following the killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni politician who symbolised Saudi influence in Beirut.

A U.N.-backed court convicted three Hezbollah members in absentia over the assassination. Hezbollah denies any role, describing the court as a tool of its enemies.

In 2008, a power struggle between Hezbollah and its Lebanese political foes led to armed conflict, after the government vowed to take action against the group's military communications network. Hezbollah fighters took over parts of Beirut.

In 2018 Hezbollah and allies who support its possession of arms won a parliamentary majority. This was lost in 2022, but the group still has major political sway.

ACCUSED OF ATTACKS ON WESTERN INTERESTS

Lebanese officials and Western intelligence have said groups linked to Hezbollah carried out suicide attacks on Western embassies and targets, and kidnapped Westerners in the 1980s.

The United States holds Hezbollah responsible for suicide bombings in 1983 that destroyed the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 servicemen, and a French barracks, killing 58 French paratroopers. It also says Hezbollah was behind a suicide attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983.

Referring to those attacks and hostage-taking, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a 2022 interview that they were carried out by small groups not linked to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has also been accused of militant attacks elsewhere. Argentina blames it and Iran for the deadly bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people died in 1994 and for an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 that killed 29 people.

Source: Reuters