Israeli forces in the northern region are continuing their offensive and defensive exercises, the Israeli army said on Wednesday.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Wednesday that Western backers of Israel should feel "shame" after paging devices belonging to Lebanon's Hezbollah exploded, in a deadly attack the Tehran-aligned group blamed on Israel.

"Western countries and the Americans... fully support the crimes, killings and indiscriminate assassinations of the Zionist regime," Pezeshkian said in a statement, referring to Israel, adding that the explosions should bring them "shame."

Israel decided to blow up the pager devices carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday out of concern its secret operation might have been discovered by the group, three U.S. officials told U.S. news portal Axios.

The attack took place as tensions rise between Israel and Hezbollah, which U.S. officials are highly concerned will devolve into all out war.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Jebran Bassil described the pager explosions that rocked Lebanon as “an attack on entire Lebanon, not on a party or a sect in it.”

Israel’s military said they have intercepted two suspicious drones that approached Israel from Lebanon and Iraq on Wednesday morning, the day after pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding nearly 3,000. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.

The Israeli military said they intercepted a drone launched from Lebanon over the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of northern Israel. Another drone launched from Iraq was intercepted by Israeli air force fighter jets. There were no injuries or damage reported.

Lebanese medics treated Tuesday a stream of wounded people at a hospital car park as others in Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold rushed to give blood after group members' pagers had exploded.

Simultaneous blasts of the devices hit locations in several Hezbollah bastions across Lebanon, with the health ministry reporting 12 killed and some 2,800 others wounded.

Caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad said Wednesday that 12 people were killed after paging devices used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon a day earlier, adding that some wounded were treated in Syria.

"After checking with all the hospitals," the toll was revised to 12 dead, Abiad told a news conference, putting the number of wounded between 2,750 and 2,800.

The pager was the first compact mobile communication tool to appear on the mass market and although smartphones have largely pushed it out, some people still use the reliable technology today.

Pagers were in the spotlight on Tuesday after hundreds of the devices used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon exploded simultaneously across the country in a first-of-its-kind attack that the group blamed on Israel.

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.