Lebanon’s death toll from a series of walkie-talkie and pager explosions this week rose to 37, according to local authorities, an illustration of the devastation wrought by suspected Israeli attacks aimed at Hezbollah militants.

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,

Israel has not commented on the mass attack on Hezbollah communications but multiple reports have said it was carried out by its spy agency Mossad.