Hezbollah chief vows 'retribution' against Israel after wave of attacks

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, threatened Israel with "tough retribution and just punishment" in a televised speech yesterday, after an unprecedented wave of attacks targeted the organisation with explosives hidden in thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies.

- Jason Burke William Christou Lorenzo Tondo

As Israeli jets roared over Beirut in a show of force, Nasrallah threatened to strike back against Israel "where it expects it and where it does not".

On Tuesday, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously, killing 12 people, including two children, and wounding up to 2,800 others across Lebanon. A day later, 25 people were killed and more than 450 wounded when walkie-talkies exploded in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals, stoking fears that a full-blown war between Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, and Israel could be imminent.

There was no comment from Israel, which hours before Tuesday's explosions had announced it was broadening the aims of its war in Gaza to include the return of northern residents evacuated from their homes owing to attacks by Hezbollah.

Late yesterday, Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon, in some of the most intense bombing since the start of the war in October. Earlier in the day Israel said it had bombed six Hezbollah "infrastructure sites" and a weapons storage facility in the south of the country.

In his speech, Nasrallah admitted that the explosive attacks - the biggest security breach for Hezbollah since its foundation in the 1980s - had been a major blow to the organisation. The attacks "crossed all red lines" and "could be considered war crimes or a declaration or war", he said, appearing on TV in front of a featureless red background at an unidentified location. "The enemy went beyond all controls, laws and morals." As tensions in the Middle East rose, senior diplomats from the US, Britain, Germany, France and Italy met in Paris yesterday before a UN security council meeting planned for today.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, was to join his counterparts in the French capital after discussing the possibility of a Gaza truce in Cairo.

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