The fear spread quickly.
Some people hurried to disconnect their appliances. Others unplugged the inverters and solar systems powering their homes. Many kept their cellphones away from them and refused to answer calls. Baby monitors, televisions, laptops — residents of Lebanon viewed them all with suspicion. Could they be the next devices to unexpectedly explode?
After two consecutive days of attacks — in which hand-held communication devices detonated across Lebanon, killing dozens and injuring thousands — the tiny Mediterranean nation was rattled. The explosions were an apparent attack by Israel on members of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group. But that did not stop others from fearing for their lives.
“Maybe tomorrow lighters will explode, too,” said Hussein Awada, 54, who works as a private driver. “If you want to light a cigarette, it will just explode in your hand.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Awada witnessed the second wave of attacks on Hezbollah, when walkie-talkies owned by the group’s members exploded, a day after thousands of Hezbollah pagers blew up. He had watched as a man had his hand blown off by the two-way radio he was holding.
The blasts were part of an elaborate Israeli operation to infiltrate Hezbollah’s supply chain, according to officials briefed on the attack, though Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any role in the explosions. On Thursday, Lebanon’s civil aviation authority banned pagers and walkie-talkies from all flights leaving Beirut’s airport.
The attacks have further ratcheted up fears of a major war between Israel and Hezbollah, which have exchanged thousands of missiles and rockets since the war in Gaza began in October.
To Mr. Awada, the clandestine work that went into booby-trapping Hezbollah’s devices and the apparently seamless coordination of the attack were like a work of fiction.
“I saw stuff today that you can only see in movies,” he said.
At least 32 people have died in the attacks, a significant number of which Hezbollah confirmed as members, although children and health workers were among the dead. More than 3,000 other people were confirmed to have been wounded in the attacks since Tuesday afternoon, many maimed with hand or face injuries.
Hezbollah is Lebanon’s dominant military and political force and is designated a terrorist group by Israel and the United States. But for many Lebanese, it is an organization with deep roots in society, providing a roster of social services and welfare programs across the country in the place of the ailing state.
Everyone, it seems, had some connection to the dead and wounded.
“In Dahieh, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t know someone who was affected,” said Mortada Smaoui, 30, a local business owner, using the Arabic name for Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs. “Either it’s your friend, or a relative or a friend of friend, so you can clearly feel the sorrow and the anger.”
After the first attack on Tuesday, Mr. Smaoui rushed to the nearest hospital, heeding calls for volunteers to donate blood. There he witnessed the chaos firsthand: bodies being carried away in blood-soaked sheets, family members frantically searching for their loved ones and the wails of injured victims who were being turned away because of a lack of beds.
Still, Mr. Smaoui said after the first attack that it had shown Lebanon at its best, with citizens from across the country’s sectarian patchwork coming together to clear roads and give blood, so much so that hospitals had to turn away prospective donors.
“I felt unity,” he said.
That sentiment was shattered on Wednesday when he was once again confronted by the carnage.
“There are buildings burning right now in front of me,” Mr. Smaoui said in the minutes after the second round of explosions, staring up at an apartment block engulfed in flames.
Dr. Salah Zeineddine, the chief medical officer at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, said the attacks were “beyond any catastrophe” he had dealt with before. Nearly 200 patients were rushed into the hospital in just three hours on Tuesday after the first wave of explosions, quickly swamping it.
“There have been so many catastrophes and mass casualties in Lebanon, but this was the first time we have seen so many casualties in such a short period of time,” Dr. Zeineddine said.
The wounded were still being tended to on Wednesday when the second round of blasts struck.
“People in the streets were screaming,” Adnan Berro, 61, said. “It was chaos. There was so much blood — on their hands, their faces, everywhere.”
“I have never seen anything like it,” he said.
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