Hezbollah says 20 members dead, hours after walkie-talkie blasts

Lebanon's Hezbollah group said 20 of its members were killed, with a source close to the group saying they died in walkie-talkie blasts blamed on Israel.

The group sent separate death notices for each member from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning, saying they had been killed "on the road to Jerusalem" -- the phrase used to refer to fighters killed by Israel. "The 20 Hezbollah members were killed by walkie-talkie explosions" a day earlier, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah members detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon's south in the country's deadliest day since cross-border fighting erupted between the militants and Israel nearly a year ago.

Lebanon's health ministry said 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured on Wednesday in Beirut's suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, while the death toll from Tuesday's explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.

Israeli officials have not commented on the blasts, but security sources said Israel's spy agency Mossad was responsible. One Hezbollah official said the episode was the biggest security breach in the group's history.

Images of the exploded walkie-talkies showed labels bearing the name of Japanese radio communications and telephone company ICOM and resembled the firm's model IC-V82 device.

But the Japanese firm said on Thursday that it had stopped producing the model of radios around 10 years ago.

"The IC-V82 is a handheld radio that was produced and exported, including to the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014. It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company," Icom said in a statement.