By Walid Saleh and James Mackenzie

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel bombed southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had thwarted an Iranian-led assassination plot, a day after explosions of Hezbollah radios that came on the heels of blasts in booby trapped pagers, setting the foes hurtling towards war.

The sophisticated attacks on armed group Hezbollah’s communications equipment, which killed 37 people and wounded around 3,000 over two days, sowed disarray in Lebanon, with panicked residents abandoning their mobile phones.

“This isn’t a small matter, it’s war. Who can even secure their phone now? When I heard about what happened yesterday, I left my phone on my motorcycle and walked away,” said Mustafa Sibal on a street near central Beirut.

A distant roar in the skies could be heard in Beirut from what Lebanese state media said was Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier – a sound that has grown increasingly common in recent months.

Israel said its warplanes struck villages in southern Lebanon overnight, and a security source and Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV reported airstrikes near the border resumed on Thursday just after midday.

Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south. The Lebanese health minister raised the death toll, saying 25 people had been killed and 608 injured in the country’s deadliest day since cross-border fighting erupted between the militants and Israel in parallel with the Gaza war last year.

The previous day, hundreds of pagers – used by Hezbollah to evade mobile phone surveillance – exploded at once, killing 12 people including two children, and injuring more than 2,300.

In a post on X, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the United Nations Security Council to take a firm stand to stop Israel’s “aggression” and “technological war” against his country.

Israel has not commented directly on the booby-trapped walkie-talkies and pagers, but multiple security sources have said the attacks were carried out by its spy agency Mossad.

Israel says its conflict with Hezbollah, like its war in Gaza against Palestinian militant group Hamas, is part of a wider regional confrontation with Iran, which sponsors both groups as well as armed movements in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

On Thursday Israeli security forces announced that an Israeli businessman had been arrested last month after attending at least two meetings in Iran, where he discussed assassinating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defence minister or the head of the Shin Bet spy agency.

Last week, Shin Bet uncovered what it said was a plot by Hezbollah to assassinate former Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon.

Israel has been accused of assassinations including a blast in Tehran that killed the leader of Hamas and another in a Beirut suburb that killed a senior Hezbollah commander within hours of each other in July.

Despite the events of the past few days, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon said the situation along the frontier had “not changed much in terms of exchanges of fire between the parties”.

“There was an intensification last week. This week it is more or less the same. There are still exchanges of fire. It is still worrying, still concerning, and the rhetoric is high,” the spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti, told Reuters.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the Israeli-Lebanon border in parallel with the war Israel has waged in Gaza against Hamas, the Palestinian militant group whose fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

Tens of thousands of people have had to flee the Israel-Lebanon border area on both sides. Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to return the evacuated Israelis “securely to their homes”.

SHIFTING FOCUS

The Israeli military said its overnight air strikes hit Hezbollah targets in Chihine, Tayibe, Blida, Meiss El Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela in southern Lebanon, as well as a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Khiam.

Israeli media reported that a number of Israeli civilians had been wounded by anti-tank missile fire from Lebanon, but there was no official confirmation.

On Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the war was moving into a new phase, with more resources and military units now being shifted to the northern border.

According to Israeli officials, the forces being deployed there include the 98th Division, an elite formation including commando and paratroop elements that has been fighting in Gaza.

Hezbollah launched missile barrages on Israel on the day after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, and since then there has been a constant exchange of fire that neither side has allowed to escalate into a full-scale war.

However, tens of thousands have been evacuated on both sides of the border, and there has been mounting pressure in Israel for the government to get the evacuees back home.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Walid Saleh in BeirutWriting by Michael GeorgyEditing by Peter Graff)

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, says it is illegal for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, to determine the price of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, for the Dangote Refinery after deregulation.

Falana, who said this in a statement on Tuesday, added that the action of the NNPCL contravenes Section 205 of the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA.

“On September 5, 2024, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) stated that foreign exchange (forex) illiquidity had been a significant factor influencing the fluctuation in prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) governed by unrestrained market forces, as provided for in the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA.

“The NNPCL was explaining the pump price of PMS imported into the country at the material time. Specifically, the Executive Vice President of Downstream NNPC Ltd Mr. Adedapo Segun, explained that Section 205 of the PIA, which established NNPC Ltd, stipulated that petroleum prices were determined by free market forces.

“But contrary to the well-publicised statement, the NNPCL has fixed the price of PMS produced by the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company Limited. The action of the NNPCL is a violent contravention of section 205 of the PIA, which stipulates that the prices of petroleum products shall be determined by market forces.

“Furthermore, since the petrol sold by Dangote is not imported into the country but produced at the Lekki Economic Free Trade Zone, the NNPCL cannot justify the sale of petrol at N950 per litre without freight cost, lightering cost, jetty depot fees, storage fees, foreign exchange costs, NPA charges: NIMASA charges, Customs duties etc,” he said.

Falana’s outburst followed the commencement of PMS lifting by the NNPCL from the Dangote Refinery.

DAILY POST recalls that as soon as lifting commenced, NNPCL announced that the product would sell for N950 per litre in Lagos State and its environs, and above N1,000 per litre in states such as Borno.

Reacting, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, on Monday, criticised NNPCL, saying it was not right for petrol lifted from the Dangote Refinery to cost higher than imported ones.

The Nigerian government has announced that it will begin paying Dangote Refinery in Naira for petrol supply starting October 1st.

This decision was made after a meeting with the Implementation Committee on the Naira crude oil sale.

The government also disclosed that the Dangote Refinery and other local refiners in Nigeria will begin to buy crude oil from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited on October 1, 2024.

The NNPC will supply approximately 385,000 barrels per day of crude oil to the Dangote Refinery, which will be paid for in Naira.