Lithium batteries absolutely can explode.
Although, I guess it depends on where you draw the line between “burning extremely fast” and exploding. But I’ve seen a solar powered device that overcharged a very hot (sitting in the Sun at 120 in Hobbes NM) battery explode (or burn so fast) it knocked out windows. I’d call that an explosion.
No clue if this was the battery alone or if they put on a little postage stamp of a helper. There’s plenty of possibilities.
Correction: Hobbs, America
Most Recent stuff says it was 2 ounces of some type of explosive, plus they could set it off based on code being presently. Various scenarios for how these were made are on x.com, but i’ve seen a member of postings that it was a Taiwan firm that made these, or perhaps they were modifying Motorola pages, and apparently Israel (which has not admitted any of this) supposedly intercepted the shipment and modified the device. Another article said that the manufacturer in Taiwan somehow assisted. right now, I’m perfectly happy to go along with the exact same thing that Democrats say all the time, there’s no evidence right now that the Israelis are involved at all. I guess if you can stand it, you could watch that video that was posted in the elevator. I viewed it as simply a very fast fire.
Thanks.