Hezbollah leader accuses Israel of targeting '5,000 people in two minutes' as he admits Lebanon blasts are 'unprecedented blow'

Hezbollah's leader has accused Israel of carrying out "massacres" with pager and walkie-talkie explosions, saying it wanted to kill "5,000 people in two minutes".

Lebanon has blamed Israel for the blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday which have killed 37 and injured thousands.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the "unprecedented" explosions "could be called a declaration of war" as he accused Israel of "violating red lines" and threatened to retaliate.

He said 4,000 pagers carried by Hezbollah members exploded in hospitals, shops, cars and streets "where many civilians were" on Tuesday.

A thousand walkie-talkies exploded the following day.

Israel has not directly commented on the attacks which, according to security sources, were probably carried out by its Mossad spy agency.

During Nasrallah's speech, in which he called the blasts an "unprecedented blow" and a "test" for Hezbollah, sonic booms were heard over Beirut which shook buildings.

Sky's international correspondent John Sparks, who is in the Lebanese capital and heard the sound, said Israeli jets could be seen over the city.

He described it as an attempt by Israel to remind people in Lebanon of their presence and military power.

Israel said its warplanes struck southern Lebanon overnight and Hezbollah reported airstrikes had resumed in the border area on Thursday afternoon.

Reacting to the speech Jon Sparks said: "Somewhat cryptically, he [Nasrallah] said that the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday would be met with a 'just punishment'. He's certainly under pressure from his members to do that. He didn't spell out what that punishment was going to look like."

Nasrallah claimed Hezbollah's top officials do not carry the model of pagers which exploded and "what happened did not impact our command, control or infrastructure".

He also spoke about the tit-for-tat war with Israel since 8 October around the south Lebanon border, adding that the conflict was causing Israel "pain" and would continue.

That fighting has continued today - the Israeli military reported two of its soldiers were killed in the north of Israel.

Israel's N12 News said one of them was killed by a drone and the other by an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.

Meanwhile, Iranian state-run news agency IRNA has issued a statement from Iran's Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami, who has been reacting to Nasrallah's speech.

He is quoted as saying Israel will face "a crushing response from the axis of resistance" following blasts targeting Hezbollah's communication devices.

The blowing up of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies was a "very sophisticated, very accurate" attack, according to an Israeli intelligence expert.

Major Avraham Levine, from the Alma Center, told Sky News the "blame was immediately put on Israel" and the "surgical" strike suggests "someone is deep into Hezbollah's communications systems".

(c) Sky News 2024: Hezbollah leader accuses Israel of targeting '5,000 people in two m