Israeli forces also launched air and artillery strikes against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, while two Israeli soldiers were killed on its northern border.
Nasrallah sought to play down the attacks, which Israel has not yet officially acknowledged, as much as possible.
He claimed that Israel had aimed to kill 5,000 people by detonating explosives hidden in the pagers and walkie-talkie radios of his fighters. But it failed, he said, because the operation only killed a fraction of that number.
Nasrallah also sought to shrug off the impact of the attack, claiming that the movement’s communications networks had survived largely unscathed.
In Hezbollah’s strongholds in the poor suburbs of south Beirut, the scene of hundreds of small explosions this week, the group’s members and supporters tried to project similar bravado.
Yet quietly many admitted to shredded nerves and a sense that every piece of technology was now a source of suspicion and that every passerby on the street was potentially a walking bomb ready to explode.
“Yesterday I bought an alarm clock because I didn’t want to sleep near my phone,” said a woman who only identified herself as Sara. “Although I have to have it with me for work, I feel like I am carrying a bomb in my pocket. I keep touching it to make sure it is not heating up.”
She was not alone. Neighbours and friends had been disconnecting appliances, refusing to answer calls and even disposing of baby monitors for fear of what might be targeted next.