The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah said Israel targeted thousands of pagers and detonated them at the same time, crossing a "red line." Hezbollah and Israel launched fresh attacks across the border as Hassan Nasrallah spoke.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant did say on Wednesday, however, that his country's war with Iran's so-called proxy groups in the region had entered a "new phase," announcing a shift to the north of Israel after 11 months of intense conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

One Hezbollah official said the episode was the biggest security breach in the group's history. The operations, which appeared to throw Hezbollah into disarray, played out alongside Israel's 11-month-old war in Gaza and heightened fears of an escalation on its Lebanese border and the risk of a full-blown regional war.