A reporter at L’Orient Today in Beirut says the situation in the Lebanese capital is “very precarious" and "everyone is tense".

"What they saw on Tuesday and Wednesday is very traumatic," Sally Abou Aljoud tells the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, adding there's a "big sense of unease in the city and across the country”.

She says people are going to work and school and "trying to bring a sense of normality but really nothing is normal", and goes on to describe "barely anyone" on the streets and that people are scared to use their electronic devices.

Image source, EPA

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) says it will carry out "activities in the training areas", external in northern Israel at the weekend and said entering the areas is "prohibited".

In a post on X, the IDF adds "gunshots and explosions" may be heard in nearby settlements.

As we've been reporting, the Israel Defense Forces says it hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon overnight to "degrade" the group's "capabilities and infrastructure".

"For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them and used civilians as human shields," the IDF said in a post on X, external, as the strikes were being carried out.

"The IDF is operating to bring security to northern Israel in order to enable the return of residents to their homes and achieve war goals," it added.

Later, the military said, external its air force struck approximately 30 Hezbollah launchers and infrastructure sites, containing approximately 150 launcher barrels, as well as "infrastructure and a weapons storage facility in multiple areas in southern Lebanon".

Image source, Israel Defense Forces

Sara Halfpenny
BBC Beijing Bureau

Taiwan’s government says Taiwan is not the source of components used in the thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters outside Taiwan’s parliament, Economy Minister Kuo Jyh-huei said: "The components are low-end IC (integrated circuits) and batteries, I can say with certainty they were not made in Taiwan."

Meanwhile Taipei investigators are continuing to question the founder of pager maker Apollo Gold, whose company logo was found on the back of some of the devises that exploded in Lebanon.

Hsu Ching-Guang spent most of Thursday being questioned as a witness. He has insisted from the start that his company did not make the pagers, and that he had signed an agreement with a company based in Hungary called BAC Consulting to use his company logo.

On Thursday investigators searched an office space in the Taipei suburb which was registered under the name Apollo Holdings. It also questioned a woman called Teresa Wu, who is believed to be the sole employee of Apollo Holdings.

Hsu Ching-Gang, the boss of Apollo Gold, had earlier told reporters that his sole contact with BAC Consulting was a woman named Teresa.

The extensive Israeli air strikes come after two days of deadly explosions across Lebanon.

Here's a quick recap:

• On Tuesday, pagers exploded simultaneously across the country and on Wednesday, walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon, with local authorities saying at least 37 people had been killed and thousands wounded from the two attacks
• Israel has not claimed responsibility for the explosions
• Yesterday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said it was embarking on a "new phase of the war", concentrating its efforts on the north
• Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel for the attacks and said it had "crossed all red lines", vowing to inflict a "just punishment"
• During Nasrallah's televised address, Israeli warplanes flew over Beirut, causing sonic booms and shortly after, Israel launched fresh strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon

• International leaders have warned both sides against an escalation

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Beirut

The Israeli airstrikes, which lasted more than two hours, were some of the most intense of this conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

They were concentrated in areas across southern Lebanon, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

This is a region that is largely empty, as tens of thousands of residents have left because of the violence along the border.

The bombardments came just hours after a much-anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in which he vowed to punish Israel for attacks targeting the group’s pagers and walkie-talkies.

At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded in the explosions that sparked chaos and panic across Lebanon, and raised fears of a wider war.

It was a humiliation for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and Nasrallah acknowledged that the group had suffered a massive and unprecedented blow.

Hezbollah is in a difficult position. It knows that any strong reaction is likely to spark a major war with Israel, which could be destructive not only for the group but also for Lebanon.

At the same time, it is not in Iran’s interest to have a damaged Hezbollah, as the group acts as part of its deterrence against Israel.

But given the scale and the impact of what happened, it needs to be seen as giving a significant response.

We're re-starting our live coverage this morning, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announcing it has struck "hundreds" of targets in Lebanon overnight.

This included attacks on launchers and additional military infrastructure, according to the IDF.

"Hezbollah feels that it is being persecuted and the sequence of military actions will continue," Israel's minister of defence said yesterday.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel for the pager and walkie-talkie attacks that happened on Tuesday and Wednesday, saying yesterday it had crossed all "red lines". Israel has not claimed responsibility.

The White House has said it's concerned about a potential escalation in the Middle East and the United Nations is expected to discuss the crisis today.

Over the last few hours, we've been bringing you updates after Israel began carrying out strikes across southern Lebanon, while the leader of Hezbollah vowed the group would respond to this week's exploding device attacks. Here's what happened today:

• Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel for the attacks - which killed 37 people - saying they crossed all "red lines". Israel has not claimed responsibility
• As Nasrallah started speaking, Israeli jets could be heard flying over Beirut. Israel then confirmed it had launched strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon
• Stories of hospital staff working around the clock to treat those injured in the device attacks continue to come in, with one doctor telling the BBC he had to act "robotic" just to be able to keep working
• The head of the World Health Organisation said the mass explosions "seriously disrupted" Lebanon's "fragile health sector"
• Western diplomats are urging against a widening of conflict - the White House said a ceasefire deal in the Middle East is "achievable", and the UK's foreign secretary, David Lammy, called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah

We're pausing our live coverage now, but you can continue reading about this story here.

Nafiseh Kohnavard
BBC Persian Middle East correspondent, in Beirut

When Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s speech began, almost everyone sitting outside the American hospital in downtown Beirut started watching on their phones.

There are many who have relatives or friends being treated for injures caused by exploding pagers. Most looked exhausted, but they watched Nasrallah's speech carefully.

“I can sacrifice myself for him. He is our leader," Maryam, from Dahieh, told me. Her husband, a Hezbollah member, lost his right hand and both eyes when his pager exploded.

A few minutes after the speech started, we heard a warplane overhead. Israeli jets were flying low over downtown Beirut.

“They are going to strike,” a man shouted, and everyone looked up. Soon after we hear four loud booms – Israeli jets have broken the sound barrier overhead.

“They want to scare us but they can’t,” a young supporter of Hezbollah said. But the panic was visible on some people's faces.

A man, 62, whose son, a doctor, was injured as he had a pager while working at a hospital managed by Hezbollah, told me: “We are not in a position that expects anything from our leader. Whatever he decides is for the benefit of our people, and we will support it.”

He added: “We are not Hezbollah members. My son was not Hezbollah member, but we are supporters of the resistance and will stay that way no matter what".

But there are concerns among many Lebanese that the country is going towards a war - a war that in some people’s eyes only Hezbollah will be responsible for.

Orla Guerin
Senior international correspondent, reporting from Beirut

Image source, Reuters

A Lebanese surgeon has described how the sheer volume of severe wounds from two days of exploding device attacks forced him to act "robotic" just to be able to keep working.

Surgeon Elias Jaradeh said he treated women and children but most of the patients he saw were young men. The surgeon said a large proportion were “severely injured” and many had lost the sight in both eyes.

The dead and injured in Lebanon include fighters from Hezbollah, but members of their families have also been killed or wounded, along with innocent bystanders. Dr Jaradeh described the wounded he treated as looking "mostly civilian".

Dr Jaradeh, who is also an MP for the Change parliamentary bloc, was working at a specialist eye and ear hospital where some of the most severely wounded people were sent. He said it had taken a toll on the medical teams, himself included.

"It's very hard," the surgeon said. "You have to dissociate yourself. More or less, you are robotic. This is the way you have to behave, but inside, you are deeply injured. You are seeing the nation injured."

Read more here.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

"Tonight I'm calling for an immediate ceasefire from both sides," Lammy tells the Reuters news agency, after meeting his French, American and Italian counterparts for talks in Paris.

"We are all very, very clear that we want to see a negotiated political settlement so that Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel and indeed Lebanese to return to their homes."

It comes after he earlier urged British nationals in Lebanon to leave "while commercial options remain".

The US believes a diplomatic solution in the Middle East "achievable" and "urgent", the White House says.

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a regular briefing in Washington that a ceasefire deal would "lower the temperature" in the region.

"We want to have a diplomatic resolution here to the tensions that we are seeing in the Middle East, we do not want to see an escalation, we believe that's achievable and obviously it's incredibly urgent," she says.

The first round of blasts began in Lebanon's capital Beirut and several other areas of the country at about 15:30 local time (13:30 BST) on Tuesday.

Witnesses reported seeing smoke coming from people's pockets, before seeing small explosions that sounded like fireworks and gunshots.

Citing US officials, the New York Times said that the pagers received messages that appeared to be coming from Hezbollah's leadership before detonating. The messages instead appeared to trigger the devices, the outlet reported.

Explosions continued for around an hour after the initial blasts, the Reuters news agency reported.

Soon after, scores of people began arriving at hospitals across Lebanon, with witnesses reporting mass confusion in emergency departments.

Similar scenes played out across the country in another round of blasts on Wednesday, at around 17:00 local time (15:00 BST).

Reports suggest it was walkie-talkies that were blown up, devices that were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, according to a security source speaking to Reuters news agency.

Read more here.

The Lebanese mission to the UN says the communication devices which exploded in Lebanon this week were detonated by electronic messages, the Reuters news agency reports.

A preliminary investigation by Lebanese authorities also found that the devices were implanted with explosives before arriving in the country, Reuters says.

Israel's army says it hit about 30 Hezbollah rocket launchers in air strikes carried out in Lebanon.

In a statement, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) says that it also struck "a weapons storage facility in multiple areas in southern Lebanon" which it claims contained "approximately 150 launcher barrels that were ready to fire projectiles toward Israeli territory".

Tom Bateman
State Department correspondent, in Washington DC

I’ve just come from the US Department of State press briefing, where I tried to pin down a few more basic facts from the spokesman, Matthew Miller.

It follows anonymous briefings from US officials we reported on yesterday suggesting Israel did in fact tip off Washington ahead of Tuesday’s attacks that it was about to do “something” in Lebanon, but gave no details of the operation.

On Tuesday, Miller said the US “was not aware of this incident in advance”. I just asked him if that was still correct and he said: “The statement I made on Tuesday was 100% accurate”. The US says it's still “gathering information”.

I pressed Miller on whether Washington sees the attacks as consistent with international humanitarian law which prohibits uses of booby-traps in the form of “harmless portable objects”.

Miller said: “We take into account all the relevant provisions of international humanitarian law when we assess incidents of this type… I don’t pronounce judgement on those from this podium”.

The US remains in a holding pattern – stalling on saying anything beyond the most basic comments (it is not even publicly attributing the attacks to Israel) – while it decides on its next moves to help shield its ally from the potential repercussions.

Nafiseh Kohnavard
BBC Persian Middle East correspondent, in Beirut

In downtown Beirut, near one of the hospitals that patients of pager devices explosions are being treated, Lebanese soldiers have been suddenly asking people to move back.

They have blocked the road with their army trucks. “Soon there will be an explosion” one soldier shouts. “Stay away.”

In one area, we found out that there would be controlled detonation of a “suspicious” pager that was identified in the area. The soldiers didn’t give us more details of where the device was found.

An army detonation specialist in full protective gear used a remote-controlled bomb disposal robot. People were anxiously watching while some tried to take cover.

“Explosion, explosion, explosion” an officer shouted in Arabic. A few seconds later, we heard a loud noise. “It was definitely lauded with explosive” another officer told me.

Some began to run away fearfully from where the sound came, while others tried to calm the frightened people down.

“That’s over. Don’t be scared,” a woman told one girl that was screaming. I found out that the woman’s husband was injured on Tuesday when the pagers being used by Hezbollah started to explode.

“Just imagine if this happens inside your house” she told me.

Nick Thorpe
Central Europe correspondent, in Budapest

Bulgaria's state security service DANS has issued a statement in response to claims that a Bulgarian registered company, Norta Global Ltd, was involved in the sale of pagers to Lebanon, which exploded on Tuesday.

"No customs operations with communication devices (pagers) that were detonated on the territory of Lebanon and Syria have been carried out through the territory of Bulgaria," the statement reads.

In other words, it's saying the pagers were neither manufactured nor exported from Bulgaria.

DANS is also carrying out "joint inspections with the National Revenue Agency and the Ministry of the Interior," the statement continued.

Norta Global appears to be a letter box address with just one named director, a Norwegian lawyer. The company was set up in 2022.

A Hungarian company, BAC Consulting, was named on Wednesday by Gold Apollo, the Taiwanese company whose logo was found on some of the devices which exploded, as the subcontractor for the devices, but the Hungarian prime minister said the company in question had "no manufacturing or operational capacity" in Hungary, and is just a "trading intermediary".

Image source, Reuters

Hezbollah is a politically-influential Shia Muslim organisation which controls the most powerful armed force in Lebanon.

It was established in the early 1980s by the region's most dominant Shia power, Iran, to oppose Israel. At the time, Israel's forces had occupied southern Lebanon during the country's civil war.

Hezbollah has participated in national elections since 1992 and has become a major political presence.

Its armed wing has carried out deadly attacks on Israeli and US forces in Lebanon. When Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah took credit for pushing them out.

Since then, Hezbollah has maintained thousands of fighters and a huge missile arsenal in southern Lebanon. It continues to oppose Israel's presence in disputed border areas.

The group is designated a terrorist organisation by Western states, Israel, Gulf Arab countries and the Arab League.

Read more about Hezbollah here.

Image source, PA Media

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has again asked for British nationals in Lebanon to leave now "while commercial options remain".

"Tensions are high and the situation could deteriorate rapidly," the foreign secretary says in a post on social media. A similar plea he made on 30 July, saying at the time that tensions in the country could escalate with "little warning".

Lammy says he has spoken to the Lebanese prime minister following the deadly blasts in the country to express "deep concern over rising tensions and civilian casualties".