Israel is accusing Iran and Hezbollah of bombarding millions of Israelis with threatening text messages as the conflict between the Israeli military and the Lebanese militant group escalated.

Israel's National Cyber Directorate said Thursday that a flood of Hebrew-language text messages popped up on cellphones nationwide, falsely purporting to be a communication from the Israeli Home Front Command.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said Hezbollah would “pay an increasing price” as Israel claims to be seeking to make conditions near its border with Lebanon safe enough for residents to return.

"Hezbollah is feeling chased and the sequence of our military operations will continue," Gallant added, in a possible hint that Israel was behind the deadly pager and walkie-talkie blasts that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday leaving 37 people dead and around 3,000 injured, many of them severely.

Two people from Taiwanese companies were questioned as part of a probe into pagers that exploded while being used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, investigators said Friday, as top officials insisted the devices were not from the island.

Questions and speculation have swirled over where the devices came from and how they were supplied to the Lebanese group after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people and wounding nearly 3,000.

Israel's military said overnight that its jets hit around 100 Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon in two waves of intense airstrikes.

"Approximately 100 launchers and additional terrorist infrastructure sites, consisting of approximately 1,000 barrels" set to be fired immediately were hit, the Israeli army said.

Bulgarian authorities said on Friday a company based in Sofia had nothing to do with the delivery of exploding communications devices to Hezbollah.

Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, wounding nearly 3,000 and generating panic.

Israel's army announced new strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Thursday, as warning sirens rang out in northern Israel, indicating possible incoming fire.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that Israel will receive "just punishment" for the communications device explosions that killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 over two days.

Israel will face "tough retribution and just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not," Nasrallah said in his first speech since the blasts, adding that he would not give further details of the place, timing or nature of Hezbollah's response.

The wave of deadly explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon has sharply heightened Pentagon concern about a potential ground war erupting in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Thursday that he spoke Wednesday with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant to “review regional security developments and reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel in the face of threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iran’s other regional partners.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has held phone talks with Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati over the deadly explosions that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.