The simultaneous explosion of hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members has massively hindered the group's communications and could undermine its operations against Israel in Lebanon's south, analysts said.

The wireless devices used by Hezbollah combatants, health workers and administrative staff exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday killing 12 people and wounding around 2,800, according to official figures.

Bulgarian authorities rejected claims that exploding devices have been shipped through the territory of the Balkan country.

“No customs operations with communication equipment (pagers) have been carried out through the territory of Bulgaria,” the state agency for national security said in a statement on Thursday.

With Israel's defense minister announcing a "new phase" of the war and an apparent Israeli attack setting off explosions in electronic devices in Lebanon, the specter of all-out combat between Israel and Hezbollah seems closer than ever before.

Hopes for a diplomatic solution to the conflict appear to be fading quickly as Israel signals a desire to change the status quo in its north, where it has exchanged cross-border fire with Hezbollah since the Lebanese group began attacking on Oct. 8, a day after the war's opening salvo by Hamas.

Caretaker Prime Minister called Thursday for the United Nations to oppose Israel's "technological war" on his country ahead of a Security Council meeting on exploding devices used by Hezbollah that killed 32 people.

Najib Mikati said in a statement the U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday should "take a firm stance to stop the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the technological war it is waging".

Israeli intelligence has suffered a blow after having failed to warn of Hamas' October 7 attack, but with this week's deadly pager blasts in Lebanon the fearsome Mossad agency appears to have hit back.

Israel has not commented on the unusual attack that turned communication devices used by Hezbollah members into explosives, killing 12 people including two children and wounding up to 2,800 others across Lebanon.

Palestinian militant group Hamas blamed Israel for a new wave of device explosions in Lebanon Wednesday in which walkie-talkies exploded in Hezbollah strongholds killing 14 people and wounding more than 450.

"We strongly condemn the renewed and ongoing Zionist aggression against the brotherly Lebanese people," Hamas said in a statement, adding that the attack, a day after Hezbollah pagers blew up, killing 12 people and wounding 2,800, "now threatens the security and stability of the region".

Senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy will meet on Thursday in Paris to discuss the spiraling tensions in the Middle East, sources said on Wednesday.

The meeting will take place as fears grow of an all-out war engulfing the region, with conflict raging in Gaza and after two days of exploding pagers and other devices in Lebanon, an unprecedented attack Hezbollah has blamed on Israel.

The Israeli military said on Thursday it struck six Hezbollah "terrorist infrastructure sites" and a weapons storage facility in southern Lebanon overnight, as fears grew of a full-blown war.

The air force "struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites in the areas of Chihine, Taybeh, Blida, Mays al-Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela in southern Lebanon, as well as a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Khiam in southern Lebanon," a military statement said.

The White House has warned all sides against escalation in the Middle East after two days of blasts in Lebanon, widely attributed to Israel, on hand-held devices targeting militant group Hezbollah.

"We still don't want to see an escalation of any kind. We don't believe that the way to solve where we're at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.

Turkey on Thursday accused Israel of seeking to expand the war in Gaza to Lebanon, terming as "alarming" a wave of deadly explosions that swept though Hezbollah strongholds.

"The escalation in the region is alarming," Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on state-run TRT television. "We see Israel mounting its attacks towards Lebanon step by step."