Warning: This post contains some distressing content

Livestream footage of the Beirut skyline on Wednesday shows the moment devices exploded across the city, as it was later confirmed that hundreds of walkie-talkies in Lebanon had been detonated.

Explosions were also seen in other parts in the country - including during a funeral - in footage shared on social media.

Wednesday's explosions came on the heels of a separate attack in Lebanon, which saw thousands of pagers used by members of the militant group Hezbollah explode. Those explosions killed at least 12 people and wounded thousands more.

Not all footage has been independently verified by the BBC.

Image source, EPA

The mass exploding of devices across Lebanon and parts of Syria over the past two days has killed 32 people and wounded thousands more, leaving the country's citizens on edge and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah humiliated.

Here's what's been happening this week so far:

• Pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across several parts of Lebanon on Tuesday, from Beirut to the Bekaa Valley and even parts of Syria
• By the end of the day on Tuesday, there were nearly 3,000 injured, 200 of them seriously, and 12 people had been confirmed dead. This included a young girl, identified as the daughter of a Hezbollah member
• A new wave of attacks on Wednesday saw more blasts and the explosions of walkie-talkies - not pagers - across Lebanon. Twentypeople were killed in the attacks and a further 450 injured
• By the end of Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had said the country is "opening a new phase in the war" as a division of the Israeli military relocated from Gaza to the north of Israel

As a reminder, there have been near-daily cross-border attacks taking place on the Lebanon-Israel border. The previously sporadic fighting escalated the day after Hamas launched attacks on Israel from Gaza on 7 October.

Walkie-talkies and pagers have now been banned onboard all flights operating at Beirut's Rafic Hariri Airport - the only operational commercial airport in Lebanon.

According to Lebanon's National News Agency, which quoted the aviation agency, passengers have been told that they may not carry such devices in their carry-ons, and they will be confiscated immediately if found.

Our colleagues at BBC Arabic have been speaking to people in Lebanon after two days of deadly explosions across the country.

"What we saw was a massacre in every sense of the word," says one woman. "Young men were walking in the street with injuries to their hands, waist and eyes... they were unable to see anything.

"A state of panic overwhelmed people to the point that they have become afraid to walk next to each other... and frankly, this situation is very frightening."

A man in south Lebanon says people "cannot hide our concern and fear, especially for children, women and the elderly".

Another woman says she is due to travel to a conference for work, but may not go. "A state of confusion, discomfort and anxiety is dominating all Lebanon," she says.

Image source, EPA

Lebanese member of parliament, Mark Daou, says the device explosions this week are "extremely terrifying".

"The attacks that happened yesterday continue to make all Lebanese pay the price," he tells BBC Newsday.

He goes on to say Lebanon has been "suffering" economically for the past 11 months from the war in Gaza and because of "some unilateral actions by Hezbollah".

Daou says Lebanon should declare a "unilateral ceasefire and an immediate stop to all military actions originating from Lebanon". He also says "international action" should put pressure on Israel to stop attacks on Lebanon.

Daou was elected in 2022 on a reformist platform, in an election in which Hezbollah and its allies lost their majority.

Image source, Getty Images

• Warning: This post contains graphic details

Journalist Sally Abou Al Joud, in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, says she saw patients "covered in blood" at hospitals following the blasts this week.

She tells BBC Newsday that ambulances arrived "one after the other within the minute", adding that most injuries she saw were "in the faces and the eyes".

"We’re talking about hands injured, severely injured fingers torn, I’ve heard some doctors say we need to perform amputation surgeries to remove hands, [and] ... they need to perform surgeries for eyes to remove them."

Image source, EPA

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Beirut

The attacks of the last couple of days are a humiliation for Hezbollah, the worst security breach in the group’s history, and an indication that Israeli intelligence agencies have managed to penetrate its communication network.

Lebanon is shocked. But across the country, there’s also a lot of anger because of the scale of the attacks.

Many of the devices exploded as those who carried them were shopping or at home with the families. The victims include at least two children, while hundreds of people have suffered eye, facial and hand wounds.

Yesterday’s blasts triggered even more chaos and panic, as many believed that no electronic device was safe. As we were in Dahiya in southern Beirut, the site of one of the explosions, Hezbollah members stopped our team several times, urging us to not use our camera or cell phones.

One of our producers received a message from a friend, who said she had changed her Lebanese SIM card to an international number, concerned that her phone could explode, too.

The confusion was made worse by rumours that spread on social media. One of them suggested that even solar panels were blowing up.

So what happens next? Is it the start of a wider Israeli offensive against Hezbollah? And how will the group respond?

Later today Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, will give his first public reaction to the attacks, and may give an indication of what they are planning to do.

Ghida is in Lebanon and tells our colleagues on BBC Newsday that "everyone is just panicking".

"We don’t know if we can stay next to our laptops, our phones. Everything seems like a danger at this point and no one knows what to do," she says.

She says after the attacks, some people "rushed to donate blood" and others "just went on with their lives". But she adds that she's "terrified".

"I am afraid of wider-scale war in Lebanon, I’m afraid for my people, I’m afraid for my city, I’m afraid for my country," she says.

"Because we do deserve better and we are paying the price of a war between Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, everyone, and we do deserve better."

Image source, EPA

Since the 7 October attacks, there has been a near-daily exchange of rocket and missile attacks between Israeli forces and Hezbollah across the Israel-Lebanon border.

In a statement this morning, the IDF says its air force hit several Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon overnight. The targets included military buildings and a weapons store, it says.

More than 40 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Wednesday, according to Israeli media.

Image source, Reuters

The use of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies could be a "criminal act", a leading barrister has told the BBC.

Speaking to Radio 4's The World Tonight, Sir Geoffrey Nice KC - who led the war crimes prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic - said there were several reasons the tactic could be illegal.

"Distributed in the way they had been, without any certain knowledge of where they would be at the time of activation, it might have been in the hands of members of Hezbollah but who were non-combatants," he said.

"Non-combatants are not entitled to be treated by... random bombs in the way these have happened.

"The second possibility is that this is simply an attack on civilians, and it's conceptually pretty much the same as Hamas unguided missiles into non-military parts of Israel.

"And then thirdly... is the question of proportionality, even if there was any justification in law for what it's assumed Israel has been doing."

As a reminder, the blasts in Lebanon have been widely blamed on Israeli spy agency Mossad - but Israel has declined to comment.

Nafiseh Kohnavard
Reporting from Beirut

On Wednesday, I spoke to Dr Nour El Osta, from the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Beirut, about what she saw following Tuesday's pager attacks.

"It was a normal day at the beginning of the day, until it wasn’t anymore," she told me.

"It unfortunately reminded us of the 4 August 2020 explosion [when more than 200 people were killed in Beirut port] but it was also different."

She said "we received too many similar injuries... all patients had lost fingers or had eye injuries. It was something we never had seen before."

Due to security concerns, we were not allowed to talk to the patients or their families, as they're mainly members of Hezbollah.

In the hospital garden, there were family members of the wounded Hezbollah members. All looked exhausted. Some women were crying.

Tom Bateman
BBC State Department correspondent, Washington DC

Among officials in Washington, the mood is reminiscent of the aftermath of two previous Israeli attacks - the deadly strike on an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus in April; and the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

In both cases the US distanced itself from the Israeli actions, fearing they could provide the spark for a regional war - but braced for the response by preparing to shield its ally both diplomatically and militarily.

In his usual carefully prepared and diplomatically guarded language, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the US was "still gathering the information" about the exploding pagers.

But behind the scenes, there will be another scramble in Washington to help protect Israel, this time from a potential response from Hezbollah.

Nevertheless, there is again a barely concealed sense of exasperation at the chance the attacks could amount to a significant miscalculation.

Image source, Reuters

As hundreds of walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon yesterday, attention turned to the devices themselves - and how they exploded.

The Japanese firm which apparently makes them says production on that model stopped 10 years ago.

Icom describes the IC-V82 as a handheld radio which was exported to the Middle East from 2004 to 2014 and has not been shipped since then. The manufacturing of the batteries has also stopped, it says.

The company says it isn't possible to confirm whether the IC-V82s that exploded in yesterday's attacks were shipped directly from Icom, or via a distributor.

But the models may not even be from Icom.

Earlier, a sales executive at the US subsidiary of Icom told AP the devices that exploded in Lebanon appeared to be a knock-off product – adding it was easy to find counterfeit versions of the product online.

• Read more about the pagers that exploded on Tuesday here

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

America’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, will meet European counterparts in Paris today for talks about the deepening crisis in the Middle East.

The meeting has long been in the diary. State Department officials said Blinken, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and their French and Italian counterparts would discuss shared priorities - including the Middle East and Ukraine.

But diplomats said the talks would inevitably focus on the mass indiscriminate communication attacks against Hezbollah members and others in Lebanon.

And the question will be what - if anything – can be done to avoid further escalation.

Blinken says it is imperative no side does anything to spread the conflict further. And he says the solution to cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah remains a ceasefire in Gaza.

But it is not clear how much Israel’s government shares that analysis. Diplomats talk openly about the risks of a wider war.

Image source, EPA

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, EPA

Yesterday was the deadliest day in Lebanon since a new round of cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and Israel began nearly a year ago, stoked by the war in Gaza.

Israel is reportedly now moving more of its forces to the northern border with Lebanon. In comments last night declaring a "new phase" of war, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant said "the centre of gravity" was moving north.

The entire region will now be listening closely when Hassan Nasrallah - the head of Hezbollah - speaks in a televised address this afternoon, expected at 15:00 BST.

His Iran-backed armed group has been hurt and humiliated by the extraordinary attacks on its communications network - and has vowed "just punishment".

Lebanon is on edge today, after thousands of devices exploded across the country on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Yesterday, exploding walkie-talkies killed 20 people and injured at least 450. Exploding pagers killed 12 on Tuesday - including two children - and injured nearly 3,000.

Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says a "new phase" of the war is beginning and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is "diverting forces, resources and energy" toward the country's northern border with Lebanon.

We'll be providing updates throughout the day from London, Beirut, and across the region, so stay with us.

Image source, Reuters

Ben Hatton
Live reporter

A second attack causing hand-held communication devices to explode in Lebanon - today walkie-talkies, yesterday pagers - saw more mass casualties and rising fears that the conflict between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah will escalate.

Here's a brief rundown of the day:

• Exploding walkie-talkies killed 20 and injured at least 450 people, according to Lebanon's health ministry
• On Tuesday, exploding pagers killed 12, including two children, and left almost 3,000 injured
• Multiple sources say Israel was targeting Hezbollah fighters in Tuesday's explosions
• Israel has not explicitly commented on the blasts, but has said today that it's "opening a new phase in the war" and the "centre of gravity" is shifting to the north - where it borders Lebanon - with the "diversion of resources and forces"
• A source later confirmed to the BBC that the 98th division of the Israeli military has relocated from Gaza to the north of Israel

We're pausing our live coverage for now - but you can read our piece on how the day unfolded if you want more. We also have an explainer on what we know about the blasts and our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, calls the attack a "triumph for Israel", but says that Hezbollah will not be deterred.

James Cook
Newscast presenter

We've been following all the latest reports coming out of Lebanon.

And I've been speaking to the BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen and our security correspondent Frank Gardner about how the pagers and walkie-talkies could have been rigged with explosives, why the attack was carried out, and what it might mean for the Middle East and the world.

Have a listen to Newcast's latest episode here.

We're seeing new images from inside Lebanon's capital Beirut.

Military personnel are pictured moments after what photographers at the scene describe as a controlled explosion of a walkie-talkie in the car park of the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

Take a look:

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

The death toll from today's blasts in Lebanon has risen to 20, the country's health ministry says.

We have not received an updated figure for how many have been injured, but Lebanon's health ministry earlier said it was at least 450 people.