Hezbollah leader says Israel’s pager attacks amounted to ‘declaration of war’

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that Israel’s deadly pager and hand-held radio attacks that targeted his fighters across Lebanon amounted to a “declaration of war,” calling it a “major aggression” against his people.

In a highly anticipated speech, Nasrallah said this week’s attacks were a genocide and a war crime against Lebanon in addition to a declaration of war.

“You can call it anything, and it deserves to be called anything,” he said, adding later that “some people might go further and say that this was an introduction, and hours later, there will be a large scale, major military operation. This is up for debate.”

As Nasrallah was speaking, Israeli fighter jets struck southern Lebanon in a new strike, the Israeli military said in a statement.

Israel has not publicly commented on the pager and hand-held radio explosions, which killed more than 30 people and wounded thousands of others Tuesday and Wednesday in Lebanon, but reports indicate Israeli officials were behind the attacks.

Hezbollah, which has been using low-tech devices like pagers to avoid Israeli surveillance and tracking, suffered one of its most serious security blows in the round of explosions that burned up homes, cars and buildings across Lebanon. It pointed to the Israeli penetration of a supply chain for the devices, which appeared to be laced with explosives and activated remotely.

Nasrallah said Thursday that Hezbollah “received a heavy, painful blow” from the targeted attacks this week but blamed it on superior technology and intelligence from Israel because it has the backing of the U.S. and the Western security alliance NATO.

“There is no doubt that we were subject to a big strike security-wise and human-wise, and unprecedented in the history of the resistance in Lebanon,” he said. “It might also be unprecedented in the world.”

Nasrallah said officials are investigating the radio and pager explosions.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging cross-border fire for nearly a year in a conflict tied to the ongoing war in Gaza. But the fighting in Israel’s north and Lebanon’s south has evolved into a diplomatic crisis of its own, with Israeli officials pledging to potentially directly fight Hezbollah to return some 80,000 displaced residents if a solution is not reached soon.

Hezbollah has vowed not to stop its attacks while Israel’s war against Palestinian militant group Hamas rages in Gaza, even as the Lebanese militant group has suffered from multiple deadly attacks from Israel, losing hundreds of fighters and top officials, including its top commander, Fuad Shukr, in July.

Nasrallah said Thursday that “the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting and standing with the people of Gaza and the West Bank” even after the pager and radio explosions.

“The aim behind this attack, the framework within which this attack took place, and the aim behind it on Tuesday and Wednesday, was to separate between the two fronts,” he said, but “Lebanon’s front will not stop before an end to the aggression on Gaza.”

Israel set a war objective this week to return its residents to the north, spurring fears that a potential invasion of Lebanon is imminent.

Nasrallah vowed that Israel “won’t be able to return the inhabitants” and said if they come into Lebanon that troops will meet an “abyss and hell” from Hezbollah fighters.

“The only way is to put an end to your aggression,” he said. “Otherwise nothing, neither military escalation nor killing, nor assassinations nor a full scale war, can return the inhabitants to the border.”