Hezbollah claims Israel for pagers blasts
The handheld pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah to communicate exploded across Lebanon, killing nine people, including a toddler, according to the country’s health minister.
Iran’s envoy to Lebanon was among the 2,800 people injured by the simultaneous explosions in Beirut and surrounding areas.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, stated that the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and acknowledged the deaths of eight fighters.
The group denounced Israel for “this criminal aggression” and promised “just retribution”. The Israeli military has declined to react.
Hours before the blasts, Israel’s security cabinet declared that preventing Hezbollah strikes in the country’s north and allowing displaced citizens to return safely was an official war aim.
Since the day after Israel and Hamas launched their assault in Gaza on October 7, there have been virtually daily exchanges of fire over the Israel-Lebanon border.
Hezbollah has stated that it is supporting the Iranian-backed Palestinian faction.
In its most recent statement on Wednesday, Hezbollah stated that it would continue its “operations in support of Gaza”, adding that this was a “continuous path separate from the hard price that awaits the enemy in response to its massacre on Tuesday”.
Israel, the United Kingdom, and other countries have all designated Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organisations.
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The UN official described the recent developments in Lebanon as “extremely concerning, especially given that this is taking place in an extremely volatile context.”
On Tuesday evening, many Lebanese were in shock and bewilderment, unable to comprehend an event of unprecedented size and scope.
Hezbollah said an undefined number of pagers – on which the group depends extensively for communications due to the risk of mobile phones being hacked or tracked – burst around 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) in Beirut and other regions.
An explosion was seen in a man’s bag or pocket on CCTV footage from a store. He is then seen sliding backwards to the ground and crying out in agony while other consumers flee.
Hours later, ambulances were still racing to hospitals, overwhelmed by the number of wounded, 200 of whom the health minister stated were in critical condition. Outside, relatives were waiting for updates.
The LAU Medical Centre in Beirut‘s Ashrafieh district shuttered its main gate and limited the number of persons allowed in. “It’s very sensitive, and some scenes are horrific,” one staff member told the news outlet.
The majority of the wounds were to the waist, face, eyes, and hands, he added, adding, “A lot of casualties have lost fingers, in some cases all of them.”
The wife of Iranian ambassador Mojtaba Amani stated that he was “slightly injured” by one of the blasts and is “doing well” in the hospital.
Hezbollah’s propaganda ministry reported the killing of eight fighters. It did not provide information about the places or circumstances, just stating that they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”.
According to a source close to the party, those slain included Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar’s son and the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member in the Bekaa Valley. Later, the source stated that the son of another lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, was wounded after initially reporting that he had died.
According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, fourteen people were injured by exploding pagers in neighboring Syria, where Hezbollah is fighting alongside government forces in the country’s civil conflict.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” Hezbollah declared in a statement issued Tuesday evening.
“This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly get his just retribution on this sinful aggression from where it counts and from where it does not count,” he said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati also blamed Israel for the blasts, calling them a “serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that he informed his Lebanese colleague that he “strongly condemned Israeli terrorism”.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, denied any involvement and encouraged Iran not to escalate tensions.
Hezbollah did not specify what it suspected caused the pagers to explode.
According to a source, the compromised gadgets were part of a new consignment delivered to Hezbollah in recent days. A Hezbollah official also told the publication that some persons felt their pagers heat up prior to the bombings.
Overheated lithium-ion batteries can catch fire, but experts say that hacking into pagers and causing them to overheat is unlikely to result in such explosions.
A former British Army munitions expert, who begged not to be named, told the NEWSSHORTR that the pagers were most likely packed with 10g to 20g of military-grade high explosive buried within a phony electronic component.
Once armed with a signal known as an alphanumeric text message, the next individual to use the cellphone would have activated the explosion, according to the expert.
Lina Khatib, a Middle East analyst at the UK-based think tank Chatham House, told the NEWSSHORTR that “Israel has been engaging in cyber operations against Hezbollah for several months, but this security breach is the largest in scale.”
According to Nicholas Blanford, a senior scholar at the Atlantic Council headquartered in Beirut, “Israel in one fell swoop has rendered combat ineffective hundreds, if not thousands, of Hezbollah fighters, in some cases permanently.”
He warned that Hezbollah’s leaders would now “face extreme pressure from the ranks and supporters to retaliate heavily”, calling it as “the most dangerous moment” in the Hezbollah-Israel conflict since October.
The Israeli military issued a statement on Tuesday evening that did not mention the pager explosions, but did say that the chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, had conducted a situational assessment with commanders, “focusing on readiness in both offense and defense in all arenas.”
It also stated that there had been no change in defense recommendations for the Israeli population, but urged them to be aware and watchful.
Earlier in the day, the military reported that an air strike had killed three “Hezbollah terrorists operating within a terrorist infrastructure site” in the Blida area, near Lebanon’s border with Israel.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported that three persons were killed in an Israeli strike, while Hezbollah’s media office stated it launched missile and drone attacks against Israeli troops and military targets.
Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security organization, also claimed to have stopped a Hezbollah bomb attack on an unnamed former senior Israeli security official. Hezbollah did not respond to the accusation.
This comes at a time when Israel’s leadership has threatened to escalate its military campaign against Hezbollah.
On Tuesday morning, Israel’s security cabinet declared the safe return of 60,000 citizens displaced in the north by Hezbollah attacks as an official goal of the Gaza conflict.
During a meeting with US envoy Amos Hochstein on Monday, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant stated that the only option to return northern residents would be by “military action”.
“The possibility of an agreement is dwindling as Hezbollah continues to ‘tie itself’ to Hamas and refuses to end the conflict,” a statement from his office read.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 589 people have been killed in Lebanon since the conflict began in October, with the vast majority of them being Hezbollah members.
The Israeli government reports that 25 civilians and 21 members of the security forces have been slain.
