A second wave of exploding communication devices struck Hezbollah members across Lebanon on Thursday (AEST), with another 14 people killed and 450 injured in the latest attack.

This time walkie-talkies were detonated, with one of the hand-held radios blowing up near a Hezbollah funeral for those who had been killed by pagers blasting en masse on Wednesday (AEST).

Hezbollah members were seen frantically taking out the batteries of walkie-talkies that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels around them, according to Reuters.

The latest round happened in Lebanon’s south, in Beirut suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after thousands of pagers exploded across the country.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 14 people were killed and 450 injured on Thursday. The death toll from Wednesday’s explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3000 injured.

A car fire from a suspected exploding device. Photo: X

Frontline workers described hellish scenes as pager victims were rushed to hospitals with organs protruding, faces missing eyes or hands missing fingers.

A security source said the walkie-talkies were bought by Hezbollah five months ago, about the same time as the pagers.

Israel has not confirmed or denied responsibility for either attack.

However, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant declared the country was “opening a new phase in the war” and that the “centre of gravity is shifting to the north through the diversion of resources and forces”.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called a meeting after the walkie-talkie attack and said he was “deeply alarmed” by reports of exploding communication devices. He urged maximum restraint “to avert any further escalation”.

Sources told Reuters that Israel’s spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of sophisticated operations on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months earlier.

Soldiers stand guard as an ambulance arrives after a reported explosion at a funeral. Photo: Getty

Lebanon’s Red Cross said on X that it was responding with 30 ambulance teams to multiple explosions in different areas.

Images of the exploded walkie-talkies examined by Reuters showed an inside panel labeled “ICOM” and “made in Japan”.

According to its website, ICOM is a Japanese radio communications and telephone company.

The company has said that production of several models of its hand-held radio had been discontinued, including the IC-V82. It appeared to closely match those in images from Lebanon and was phased out in 2014.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for an independent investigation into the events surrounding the exploding pagers.

Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo was initially thought to have manufacture the pagers that exploded. It has since said they were made under licence by a company called BAC, based in Hungary’s capital Budapest.

But the Hungarian government said the pagers were never in the country.

“Hungarian authorities have established that the company in question is a trading-intermediary company, which has no manufacturing or other site of operation in Hungary,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on Facebook.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military declined to comment on the blasts.

The two sides have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, fuelling fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could drag in the US and Iran.

A full-blown war with Israel could devastate Lebanon, which has lurched from one crisis to another in recent years, including a 2019 financial collapse and the 2020 Beirut port blast.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of pushing the Middle East to the brink of a regional war by orchestrating a dangerous escalation on many fronts.

Hezbollah said it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and Israel should await a response to the pager “massacre”, which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or dead.

One Hezbollah official said the detonation was the group’s “biggest security breach” in its history.

The plot appears to have been many months in the making, several sources told Reuters.

It followed a series of assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas commanders and leaders blamed on Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

-with AAP