Israel pounds Lebanon as Hezbollah vows revenge

BEIRUT — Israel said it struck hundreds of targets in Lebanon, hours after Hezbollah's leader vowed to retaliate for two "unprecedented" rounds of attacks targeting its operatives' communication devices.

Israel has not commented on the explosion of thousands of Hezbollah pagers and radios which killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 over two days this week, but it has been blamed by the group for the attacks.

Speaking for the first time since the deadly device sabotage, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution.

Describing the attacks as a "massacre" and a possible "act of war", Nasrallah said Israel would face "tough retribution and just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not".

As he delivered his televised address, Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over Beirut.

According to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, Israel struck the south of Lebanon at least 52 times.

Hezbollah meanwhile said it launched at least 17 attacks on military sites in northern Israel.

The device blasts and Thursday's barrage of airstrikes came after Israel announced it was shifting its military objectives to its northern border with Lebanon where it has been trading fire with Hezbollah.

International mediators have repeatedly tried to avert a full-blown war between Israel and Lebanon and prevent the regional fallout of the conflict in Gaza.

Hezbollah maintains its fight is in support of Hamas and Nasrallah vowed the attacks on Israel will continue as long as the fighting in Gaza lasts.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said the "blatant assault on Lebanon's sovereignty and security" was a dangerous development that could "signal a wider war".

Truce prospects

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for restraint by all sides.

However, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, US officials now believe that a Gaza cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is not expected before the end of President Joe Biden's term in January.

The preliminary findings of a Lebanese investigation found the pagers had been booby-trapped, a security official said.

The country's mission to the United Nations concurred, saying in a letter that the probe showed "the targeted devices were professionally booby-trapped. … before arriving in Lebanon, and were detonated by sending emails to the devices".

A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, said the pagers were recently imported and appeared to have been "sabotaged at source".

Agencies Via Xinhua