Hezbollah was in disarray on September 19, after a second wave of explosions swept through its strongholds across Lebanon, piling pressure on its leader ahead of a major speech to exact revenge for the operation it blames on Israel.

Lebanese minister Nasser Yassin, who heads up the country’s disaster response committee, has said that yesterday’s pager explosions were “another severe test of our preparedness”, and praised the way that emergency services coped with the sudden influx of casualties.