The simultaneous explosion of thousands of pagers used by Lebanese militia Hezbollah on Tuesday was the result of an unprecedented weaponization of a wireless paging system, in which rigged devices detonated upon receiving a coded signal transmitted by radio frequency.

Pagers, used every day by health care professionals, became a deadly weapon Tuesday as thousands of them simultaneously exploded in Lebanon.

Hundreds of pagers carried by Hezbollah members blew up nearly simultaneously in an attack that tops a series of covert assassinations and cyber-attacks in the region.

Israel launched a series of strikes on Hezbollah targets Thursday as the war against the Lebanon-based group widened in the wake of two consecutive days of deadly explosions triggered in wireless devices.

For millions of Lebanese, this week's mass explosion of pagers and walkie-talkies, with its bloody aftermath, is painfully similar to the horrific explosion four years ago of haphazardly stored ammonium nitrates that tore through Beirut's port,

Israel said it pounded Lebanon's Hezbollah, just hours after the group's leader vowed retribution for deadly explosions that targeted its communication devices, killing 37 people and wounding thousands.