Gallant did not take explicit credit, and Israel has been careful not to take public credit for the exploding beepers on Tuesday or the exploding devices on Wednesday.

U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon urged immediate de-escalation as hostilities rumbled on at the Lebanese-Israeli border on Friday, following Israel's most intense airstrikes in nearly a year of conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

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,