Walkie-talkies explode in Hezbollah strongholds a day after pager blasts
14 killed, more than 450 injured as pagers and 'devices' explode
Beirut: A second wave of device explosions killed 14 people and wounded more than 450 others on Wednesday in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, officials said, stoking fears of an all-out war with Israel.
A source close to Hezbollah said walkie-talkies used by its members blew up in its Beirut stronghold, with state media reporting similar blasts 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.
Fourteen people were killed and more than 450 wounded in the latest attacks, the health ministry said, also describing the devices targeted as walkie-talkies.
They came a day after the simultaneous explosion of hundreds of paging devices 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.
There was no comment from Israel, which only hours before Tuesday's attacks had announced it was broadening the aims of its war with Hamas in Gaza to include its fight against the Palestinian group'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."
Israeli officials have remained tight-lipped about the explosions which led the television news bulletins and dominated newspaper headlines.
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".
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warned the "blatant assault on Lebanon's sovereignty and security" was a dangerous development that could "signal a wider war".
Hezbollah said Israel was "fully responsible for this criminal aggression" and vowed revenge.
The influx of so many casualties all at once overwhelmed hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds.
At a Beirut hospital, doctor Joelle Khadra said "the injuries were mainly to the eyes and hands, with finger amputations, shrapnel in the eyes - some people lost their sight."
A doctor at another hospital in the Lebanese capital said he had worked through the night and that the injuries were "out of this world - never seen anything like it".