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

The group claimed the attack, which struck at 3.30pm local time, was perpetrated by Israel, an allegation that Israel refused to address, in keeping with its policy on assaults happening outside of its own territory.

The Lebanese health minister Firas al-Abyad said nine people had been killed, including an eight-year-old girl, after the pagers exploded across Lebanon and in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where Hezbollah have stationed some of its members. Another 2,800 were wounded, the minister said, including 400 who were critically injured.

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The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is braced for a response after Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind the detonation of handheld pagers that has killed at least nine and injured thousands.

Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, the IDF’s chief of staff, insisted that they remain ready “for attack and defence in all arenas”. He declined however to mentioning the pager attacks which occurred across Lebanon and in parts of Syria, and Israel has not responded to accusations they are responsible.

“We will update immediately on any change to [Home Front Command guidelines],” the IDF added.

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.

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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.