Updates: Hezbollah’s chief says Israel attacks on Lebanon an ‘act of war’

For a summary of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s comments in the aftermath of hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies simultaneously exploding across Lebanon this week, watch our newsfeed video here.

And you can find our in-depth coverage of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel here.

We will be closing this live page shortly. Here is a recap of today’s main events:

• Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah blames Israel for the deadly blasts of Hezbollah pagers and radios on Tuesday and Wednesday, saying civilians were among the victims.
• Senior officials of the Lebanese armed group do not carry the models of pagers that exploded, Nasrallah said.
• Nasrallah promises that Hezbollah’s operations in southern Lebanon will continue until the Israeli war in Gaza concludes.
• Nasrallah says the attacks did not shake Hezbollah’s faith, conviction or preparedness. “On the contrary, this turned us more resolved, more robust and more adamant.”
• According to the Israeli army, two soldiers have been killed near the Israel-Lebanon border.
• Iranian state media say Hossein Salami, the top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, informed Nasrallah that Israel would face “a crushing response from the axis of resistance”.

Reactions to Nasrallah’s speech in the Beirut suburb of Achrafieh are mixed, and those interviewed did not feel comfortable giving their names.

A man standing at a bus stop near Sassine Square blamed Nasrallah for the violence people in Lebanon face but added that he does not fear more attacks like those that occurred this week.

“I don’t fear more attacks. I only fear Hassan Nasrallah because he brought hostilities and aggressions upon the Lebanese people,” he said.

A young man working at a restaurant said he trusted Nasrallah.

“I fully trust Hassan Nasrallah because he has a vision, and I support the decision not to close the southern front,” he said.

Additional reporting by Karim Hmede in Beirut

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has emphasised the need to prevent any actions that could escalate tensions in the Middle East.

“France and the United States are united in calling for restraint and urging de-escalation when it comes to the Middle East in general and when it comes to Lebanon in particular,” Blinken said after talks in Paris with his French counterpart, Stephane Sejourne.

“We don’t want to see any escalatory actions by any party” that would endanger the goal of a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, he added.

Hossein Salami, top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has told Nasrallah that Israel will face “a crushing response from the ‘axis of resistance'” after the pager and radio attacks, according to Iranian state media.

“Such terrorist acts are undoubtedly the result of the Zionist regime’s [Israel’s] despair and successive failures,” Salami said in his message to the Hezbollah chief. “We will witness the destruction of this bloodthirsty and criminal regime.”

Separately, Iranian media reported that Salami visited a hospital in Tehran where some of the 95 wounded people who had been transported from Lebanon to Iran’s capital were being cared for. Among them were three children, aged three, seven and 11.

In a clip from inside the hospital, one of the children who has extensive injuries to the eyes and the face said he was in his grandfather’s home when he picked up a beeping pager to hand it over to his father.

Salami also visited Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, who was injured in a pager blast, but no footage was shown. Earlier, state media released an image that showed Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meeting Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, a top eye doctor and former health minister who is leading the team treating the ambassador.

Just as Hassan Nasrallah was speaking, at least two fighter jets circled around where I am in central Beirut, and we heard two very loud sonic booms, when the sound barrier is broken. It was a thunderous noise that actually made people on the street here duck.

We’ve also seen images of the jets launching flares as they left the area. It’s basically a campaign of harassment of Lebanese civilians to make them nervous and scared. There are also sonic booms reported outside of Beirut.

Many people on social media are saying they’ve seen drones as well. This was all timed to coincide with Nasrallah’s speech, in which he said Israel was fully aware that 4,000 communication devices in Lebanon were rigged to explode.

“They wanted to killed 4,000 people at the same time, regardless of civilian casualties in the vicinity,” the Hezbollah leader said.

In his highly anticipated speech, Nasrallah blamed Israel for the deadly blasts of Hezbollah pagers and radios on Tuesday and Wednesday, saying civilians were among the victims.

He said the attacks, which he described as a “massacre”, crossed all red lines and could be called an act of war and a declaration of war.

The Hezbollah leader said the explosions were a “severe” and “unprecedented” blow, but he reassured supporters that they had failed to harm the group’s infrastructure.

He said Hezbollah was investigating how the attacks were carried out but warned Israel it would face “just punishment where it expects it and where it does not”.

Nasrallah also pledged to keep up Hezbollah’s fight against Israel until Israel’s nearly 12-month war on the Gaza Strip ends.

“The Lebanese front will not stop until the aggression on Gaza stops” despite “all this blood spilt”, he said.

Nasrallah’s address also touched on Israeli officials’ pledges to return thousands of Israelis displaced by cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel’s army and Hezbollah to their houses.

“You will not be able to return the people of the north to the north,” he said, warning that “no military escalation, no killings, no assassinations and no all-out war can return residents to the border”.

Finally, Nasrallah said Hezbollah hoped Israeli soldiers would enter southern Lebanon because that would create a “historic opportunity” for his group.

After Nasrallah’s speech, we don’t know what’s really going to happen because in his speech, at least from what I heard, there was nothing revealing.

But at the same time, there was something that felt ambiguous – when he spoke about the methods that are different, when he spoke about keeping the accountability or the retaliation within a very small circle.

I think he spoke about the investigation within the organization, within Hezbollah – that inside the party they are also looking in different ways to how they are discussing their plans for the future.

When he’s saying that “whenever I am going to retaliate, I’ll keep this plan within the narrowest circle”, this is very important.

With respect to the Israeli attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, he was clear at saying this was a strike, this was a very big blow for Hezbollah.

Nasrallah promises that Hezbollah’s operations in southern Lebanon will not come to a halt until the Israeli war on Gaza comes to an end.

“The resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting the resistance in Gaza, the West Bank and all the aggrieved,” he said in translated remarks.

Nasrallah says whatever the consequences and the possibilities, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting Gaza.

He also tells Israeli officials they will not be able to return displaced residents of northern Israel back to their homes.

As the Hezbollah chief continues his speech, here’s a quick summary of what he has said so far:

• Israel wilfully aimed to kill thousands of people in Lebanon in two days of attacks.
• This is an act of war and a declaration of war by Israel on the Lebanese people.
• The unprecedented attacks are a big blow but have not brought Hezbollah to its knees.

Meanwhile, our correspondents in Beirut report that Israeli jets have been flying at low altitude over the Lebanese capital during Nasrallah’s speech.