Nine lifeless and hundreds injured as Hezbollah pagers explode throughout Lebanon – newest

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement late on Tuesday that she deplored the attack across Lebanon hours earlier, warning that it marked an extremely concerning escalation.

In a statement, she urged “all concerned actors to refrain from any further action, or bellicose rhetoric, which could trigger a wider conflagration that nobody can afford”.

On Tuesday afternoon, pagers used by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah detonated in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, leaving thousands wounded and killing nine, including a young girl.

It seemed too extraordinary to be real.

At around 3.45pm local time, hundreds of pagers began spontaneously exploding across Lebanon and parts of Syria killing at least eight people, including a child and injuring 2800 others.

Among the wounded are fighters in the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, medics and even Iran’s envoy to Beirut.

The videos – shared online – which purportedly showed the moment these explosions occurred, are even more bizarre and raised further questions. Men in supermarkets, at vegetable stalls and on motorcycles, are seen suddenly being knocked to the ground by the powerful blasts.

Read the full analysis from our chief international correspondent Bel Trew:

The pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members in February to stop using cellphones. This move was initiated after- the group warned that carrying mobiles meant they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence.

A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the pagers were a new brand, but declined to say how long they had been in use. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Experts said the pager explosions point to a sophisticated, long-planned operation, possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the pagers with explosives before they were imported to Lebanon.

The US State Department said it was too early to say how the pager attacks in Lebanon might impact efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

It urged Iran – which with its allies Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq has formed an “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US influence – not to take advantage of any incident to raise instability.

Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in the belief they could evade Israeli location tracking, two sources familiar with the group’s operations had previously said. A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays messages.

Israel has added the safe return of its citizens to their homes near the border with Lebanon to its formal war goals, as it considers a wider military operation in Lebanon that could ignite an all-out conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office said he laid out the war aim in a security cabinet meeting.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from towns and villages on both sides of the border by near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Read the full article from earlier today here:

Among the nine people killed is an eight-year-old girl, who died after a pager exploded.

The girl is the daughter of a Hezbollah member and died in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, AFP news agency reports.

Nearly 3,000 are injured, 200 of them criticially, Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad has said.

The majority of the explosions took place in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Additional explosions were recorded in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where many Hezbollah members are based.

Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon, where they have been exchanging rocket fire with Israel across the border for nearly a year in solidarity with their fellow Iran-backed allies Hamas, who are fighting their own war against Israel.

Read the full article from Tom Watling here:

The Iraqi government and an Iran-backed Iraqi militia are promising to send assistance to Lebanon.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani ordered Iraqi medical and emergency service teams to be sent, his office said in a statement.

The Kataeb Hezbollah militia, one of the most powerful among Iraq’s Iranian-backed armed groups, said in a separate statement that it would “put all our capabilities in the hands of the brothers in Lebanon.”

“We are fully prepared to go with them to the end, and to send fighters, equipment, and support, whether on the technical or logistical level,” it said.

The US continues to believe that there needs to be a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah promised to retaliate after blaming Israel for detonating pagers on Tuesday that killed at least eight people and wounded 2,750 others, including many of the militant group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.

“So we continue, we continue to believe that there … should be a diplomatic resolution to this,” Jean Pierre said.

The United States has it is gathering information after at least nine people were killed and some 2,750 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members – including fighters and medics – detonated simultaneously across Lebanon.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a regular news briefing the US was not involved in the incidents and did not know who was responsible. Lebanon’s Hezbollah threatened to punish Israel in response to the incidents.

“We are gathering information on this incident,” Miller said. “I can tell you that the US was not involved in it. The US was not aware of this incident in advance.

“We’re collecting information in the same way that journalists are across the world, to gather the facts about what might have happened,” Miller added.

In response to a question, Miller said the United States was always concerned about any incident that can raise tensions in Middle East and urged Iran not to take advantage of any incident to raise instability.

Miller also said that civilians were not legitimate targets for any type of operation.