International Desk

A Lebanese army soldier stands guard near fire trucks at the scene of a reported pager device explosion in Saida in southern Lebanon on September 18, 2024. A second wave of device explosions killed three people in Hezbollah strongholds of Lebanon on September 18, raising fears of an all-out war between Israel and the Iran-backed militants.

The death toll from a second wave of explosions of electronic devices in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon on Wednesday rose to 20 with more than 450 people wounded, the country's health ministry said.

"The wave of enemy explosions that targeted walkie talkies... killed 20 people and wounded more than 450," the ministry said in a statement.

A second deadly wave of unprecedented explosions in the strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah left it in disarray on Thursday, hours before a major speech by its beleaguered leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The latest batch of device explosions killed 20 people and wounded more than 450 others on Wednesday, officials said, stoking fears of a full-blown war with Israel.

The blasts came a day after the simultaneous detonation of pagers used by Hezbollah killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded up to 2,800 others across Lebanon, in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel.

Walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in the latest blasts at Hezbollah's Beirut stronghold, a source close to the group said, with state media reporting similar detonations in south and east Lebanon.

AFPTV footage showed people running for cover when an explosion went off during a funeral for Hezbollah militants in south Beirut in the afternoon.

"The wave of enemy explosions that targeted walkie talkies... killed 20 people and wounded more than 450," Lebanon's health ministry said in a statement.

There was no comment from Israel, which only hours before Tuesday's explosions had announced it was broadening the aims of its war in Gaza to include its fight against Hamas's ally Hezbollah.

"The centre of gravity is moving northward," Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to an air base on Wednesday. "We are at the start of a new phase in the war."

Amos Harel of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had put "Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of all-out war".

- Out of this world -

With tensions in the Middle East spiralling, senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy will meet on Thursday in Paris, sources said, ahead of a UN Security Council meeting planned for Friday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will join his counterparts in the French capital after discussing the possibility of a Gaza war truce in Cairo.

The White House warned all sides against "an escalation of any kind".

"We don't believe that the way to solve where we're at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Iran-backed Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas's October 7 attacks sparked the war in Gaza.