Women mourn over the coffin of killed Lebanese Hezbollah member Hussein Amhaz during his funeral in Baalbek, in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, on September 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Israeli military said on Thursday (September 19, 2024) it struck six Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructure sites” and a weapons storage facility in southern Lebanon overnight, as fears grew of a full-blown war.

The air force “struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites in the areas of Chihine, Tayibe, Blida, Meiss El Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela in southern Lebanon, as well as a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Khiam in southern Lebanon,” a military statement said.

Turkey on Thursday (September 19, 2024) accused Israel of seeking to expand the war in Gaza to Lebanon with the “alarming” wave of deadly explosions that swept though Hezbollah strongholds. 

“The escalation in the region is alarming,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on state-run media. “We see Israel mounting its attacks towards Lebanon step by step.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon‘s Hezbollah group said 20 of its members were killed, with a source close to the group telling AFP on Thursday (September 19, 2024) that they had died in walkie-talkie blasts blamed on Israel the day before.

The group sent separate death notices for each member from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning, saying they had been killed “on the road to Jerusalem” — the phrase used by Hezbollah to refer to fighters killed by Israel.

Hezbollah fighters carry the coffins of a person killed after hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, during their funeral procession in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 18, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Japanese firm Icom said Thursday (September 19, 2024) that it had stopped producing the model of radios reportedly used in recent blasts in Lebanon around 10 years ago.

“The IC-V82 is a handheld radio that was produced and exported, including to the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014. It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company,” Icom said in a statement.

“The production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit has also been discontinued, and a hologram seal to distinguish counterfeit products was not attached, so it is not possible to confirm whether the product shipped from our company,” it said.

It added that products for overseas markets are sold exclusively through its authorized distributors, and that its export programme is based on Japanese security trade control regulations.

“All of our radios are manufactured at our production subsidiary, Wakayama Icom Inc., in Wakayama Prefecture, under a strict management system… so no parts other than those specified by our company are used in a product. In addition, all of our radios are manufactured at the same factory, and we do not manufacture them overseas,” the statement said.

In the second wave of device explosions in as many days, 20 people died and more than 450 were wounded on Wednesday (September 19, 2024) in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, officials said.

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.

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