BEIRUT — The Israeli attacks across Lebanon this week that turned pagers and walkie-talkies into bombs appear to have targeted Hezbollah’s vast network of reservists and logistical operatives, according to individuals close to the militant group and eyewitness accounts.

       Most of the 37 people killed are believed to have been fighters, based on death notices posted by the group. Two were children, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Among the dead and the more than 3,000 injured, many blinded or maimed, were hospital workers, a shopkeeper, a car mechanic and a teacher — people who were not full-time militants but were connected to Hezbollah in other ways.

       The attacks have provided a rare window into the inner workings of Hezbollah — a military, political and social organization that is both notoriously secretive and deeply embedded in Lebanese society.

       While it is considered a terrorist group by the United States and its European allies, Hezbollah is able to draw on a deep well of support in Shiite parts of Lebanon by delivering jobs and services that the country’s decrepit government is unable to provide. In the suburbs of Beirut and across the south, the group runs hospitals, social welfare institutions, unions and construction companies. Hezbollah and its allies control 40 of the country’s 128 seats in parliament.

       Joseph Bahout, director of the Institute of Public Policy at the American University in Beirut, said the scope of the attack illustrated the depth and reach of Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon.

       “It’s not a small clandestine militia; it’s a sort of a society in arms,” he said. “This is huge horizontal organization that has permeated society.”

       On Tuesday, thousands of the group’s pagers exploded simultaneously across the country — in homes, supermarkets and taxis, and on street corners — sparking widespread panic and overwhelming hospitals. Hundreds of two-way radios blew up the next day, causing further carnage and confusion.

       Hezbollah had distributed the rigged devices to its members this spring as an alternative to cellphones, which the group feared were being tracked by Israel as part of a campaign of targeted assassinations. Some of the pagers were given to active fighters, according to those familiar; others handled logistics, were in the group’s reserves — available to be called up as fighters in the event of a full-scale war — or worked in civilian institutions such as hospitals.

       “Those who use the pagers are people who do not have just one job,” said a Lebanese individual close to Hezbollah. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters, explaining that members often play different roles within the organization.

       “The goal was to hit the structure of the resistance and this did not happen,” Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, said in a defiant speech Thursday. He vowed to continue strikes on Israel, which the group has been carrying out since Oct. 8 in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Escalating exchanges of fire with the Israeli military have displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.

       “We will be able to overcome this test with heads held high,” Nasrallah said.

       Beneath the bluster, people here are scared and traumatized. Already battered by economic woes and political dysfunction, they say their country cannot endure much more.

       “A climate of fear now pervades everyday life in Lebanon,” a panel of United Nations human rights experts said in a statement Thursday. “These attacks violate the human right to life, absent any indication that the victims posed an imminent lethal threat to anyone else at the time,” the statement continued, calling for a “prompt, independent investigation.”

       In Beirut’s southern suburbs, funerals were held Wednesday for some of those killed in the pager attacks. Among them were two Hezbollah fighters, a hospital orderly and an 11-year-old boy.

       Nearly every mourner approached by The Washington Post said they knew someone who died or was injured in the explosions. Ali, an airport worker who gave only his first name for fear of speaking without Hezbollah’s permission, recalled the blasts on Tuesday happening all at once and seeming to come from all directions.

       He said that on his street alone, four people were injured, including a fruit seller.

       “They were just civilians,” he said. Asked why they were carrying pagers that were distributed by Hezbollah, he replied: “In this area, everyone is part of the resistance.”

       Experts estimate that Hezbollah has up to 50,000 active fighters and tens of thousands more reservists. The pagers were widely distributed among the reserve corps, according to the individual close to Hezbollah, and would be used to call them up for service — whether to fight, treat the injured or perform other duties.

       “This category is the most vital in the ranks of Hezbollah, which consists of people who have jobs but are on call when needed,” he said.

       Communication among the group’s most senior members, and with front-line positions along the Israel-Lebanon border, takes places on a hard-wired network, the individual added.

       But prominent figures were also provided with pagers. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, sustained injuries to his face and hand in Tuesday’s attack, according to a regional official briefed on the incident, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. And Mohammed Mahdi, the adult son of Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah member of parliament, was killed.

       Ammar told a Lebanese broadcaster that his son’s death “represents the ultimate sacrifice in defending the nation.”

       Muhammed Nour Adeen, the hospital orderly killed on Tuesday, carried her pager for work, friends and co-workers told The Post at her funeral. Two women who work in hospital management said they had just arrived for their shift when they heard a loud bang and crash.

       At first, the women thought it was a car accident outside. Then they realized the explosion had come from inside the building. Many hospital workers were injured, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, afraid to be interviewed without Hezbollah’s blessing.

       Muhammed Kanj, 11, had gone to a neighbor’s house on Tuesday to see a friend. The pager, owned by his friend’s father, had been left in the room where the boys were playing when it started to beep, said his aunt, 59-year-old Safa Kanj.

       Muhammed was killed, and his friend was injured.

       “He had just started school,” said Safa Kanj, a retired teacher. “He had a beautiful personality. He was a happy child.”

       Now, she worries about how to keep the rest of her family safe. “We don’t know what will be next,” she said, gesturing to the mobile phones many at the funeral were holding.

       Moments later, there was a blast on the far edge of the crowd. Onlookers said the walkie-talkie of a volunteer ambulance driver had exploded. Hezbollah security guards called on people to turn off their phones and take the batteries out of their radios.

       Bahout said the attacks have left Hezbollah exposed, as open source information about those killed and injured is swept up by foreign intelligence networks.

       “It’s not the first time that they were penetrated,” he said, referring to reports that a compromised communications network led to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in late July. “But in terms of magnitude, this one is different.”

       Mohamad El Chamaa contributed to this report.