The relentless exchanges of fire between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah of recent days have stoked fears the longtime foes are moving inexorably towards all-out war, despite international appeals for restraint.

AFP correspondents in Jerusalem and Beirut talked to officials and analysts who told them what the opposing sides hope to achieve by ramping up their attacks and whether there is any way out.

Israel is bombing targets across many parts of Lebanon, striking senior militants in Beirut's southern suburbs and apparently hiding bombs in pagers and walkie-talkies. Hezbollah is firing rockets and drones deep into northern Israel, setting buildings and cars alight.

But no one is calling it a war — not yet.

Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon turned out in force Sunday for the funeral of a top commander killed in an Israeli air strike, in a major show of support for the Iran-backed group.

Hezbollah has hailed commander Ibrahim Akil as "one of its great leaders", saying the 61-year-old died in an "Israeli assassination... in Beirut's southern suburbs" on Friday.

For almost a week, ophthalmologist Elias Jradeh has worked around the clock, trying to keep up with the flood of patients whose eyes were injured when pagers and walkie-talkies exploded en masse across Lebanon.

He has lost track of how many eye operations he has performed in multiple hospitals, surviving on two hours of sleep before starting on the next operation. He has managed to save some patients' sight, but many will never see again.

Doctors in Lebanon spoke of horrific eye injuries and finger amputations, a day after Hezbollah paging devices exploded across the country, killing 12 people and wounding up to 2,800.

"The injuries were mainly to the eyes and hands, with finger amputations, shrapnel in the eyes -- some people lost their sight," said doctor Joelle Khadra, who was working in emergency at Beirut's Hotel-Dieu hospital.

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.

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.

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.

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government were quick to blame Israel for the nearly simultaneous detonation of hundreds of pagers used by the group's members in an attack Tuesday that killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 3,000 others, according to officials.

Many of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it wasn't immediately clear if others also carried the pagers. Among those killed were the son of a prominent Hezbollah politician and an 8-year-old girl, according to Lebanon's health minister.

In what appears to be a sophisticated, remote attack, pagers used by hundreds of members of Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria Tuesday, killing at least nine people — including an 8-year-old girl — and wounding thousands more.

A U.S. official said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated — on Tuesday after it was concluded. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.