Lebanese ministers warn of a dangerous next 48 hours after pager attacks

Lebanon’s leadership warned that the risk of further violence and escalation is extremely high following two days of attacks involving exploding communications devices across the country.

The next 48 hours, ministers told CNBC Thursday, will be particularly dangerous.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of communications devices — including pagers and two-way radios — used by members of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah exploded in an apparent widespread act of sabotage, killing at least 37 people and injuring at least 3,000 more.

Hezbollah called the act an “Israeli aggression”; Israel, meanwhile, has not commented on the blasts. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those injured, while a son of a Hezbollah member of parliament was killed in the attack. Children were also among those killed.

“It’s definitely a very serious escalation. I don’t see any act of escalation that will not lead to provocation, and that is what we fear most, because what happened yesterday will only trigger more escalation into the conflict,” Lebanon’s Minister of Economy Amin Salam told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Thursday.

“This will be a really, very, very dangerous … 48 hours that this country will witness to see how the reaction will be.”

Hezbollah, the Shia organization that also dominates a large swathe of Lebanon’s politics, is already engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire with Israel to its south. The group has now vowed retaliation, raising fears of all-out war in a region already ravaged by conflict.

Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets into Israel in the nearly 12 months since the latter began its war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza in October last year, with Israeli retaliatory fire killing hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and scores of Lebanese civilians. Tens of thousands of people on both the Lebanese and Israeli sides of the border have been evacuated from their homes.