The pagers exploded in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh and the eastern Bekaa Valley – all Hezbollah strongholds.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is waging war with Israel in Gaza, said the pager blasts were an “escalation” that will only lead Israel to “failure and defeat”.
The casualties included Hezbollah fighters who are the sons of top officials from the armed group, two security sources told Reuters.
Hezbollah has said it wants to avoid all-out conflict with Israel but that only an end to the Gaza war will stop the cross-border clashes.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
BEIRUT, Sept. 17 (Reuters) – Armed group Hezbollah vowed to exact revenge on Israel after charging it with setting off pagers throughout Lebanon on Tuesday, which resulted in the deaths of nine people and the injuries of nearly 3,000 others, including fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.
Ziad Makary, the minister of information in Lebanon, denounced the late-afternoon explosion of the pagers, which are portable communication devices used by Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon, as “Israeli aggression.”. Israel will get “its fair punishment” for the explosions, according to Hezbollah.
Since the beginning of the Gaza conflict in October, the Israeli military has been fighting Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, across international borders. When questioned about the detonations, the military declined to comment.
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, the number of fatalities increased from eight to nine on Tuesday night, while the number of injured stayed at 2,750.
At least two of Hezbollah’s fighters as well as a young girl were among the dead, the organization confirmed earlier.
Hezbollah strongholds in the eastern Bekaa Valley, the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh, and southern Lebanon all saw the explosion of the pagers.
In one case, a customer was paying at a grocery store when what looked to be a small handheld device placed next to the cashier exploded, according to closed-circuit surveillance footage carried by regional broadcasters.
According to a Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the event was the organization’s “biggest security breach” in almost a year of hostilities with Israel.
According to the New York Times, which cited American and other officials briefed on the operation, Israel concealed explosive material in the Taiwan-made Gold Apollo pagers prior to their importation into Lebanon. With a remote-triggerable switch that would explode, the material was implanted next to the battery.
Pager blasts are an “escalation” that will only lead to Israel’s “failure and defeat,” according to Hamas, a militant Palestinian group that is at war with Israel in Gaza.
The attack was condemned by the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, who said in a statement that it “marked an extremely concerning escalation” in the conflict.
Washington declared that it did not know who was behind the explosions and that it was not involved. The U.S. s. redoubled efforts to resolve Israel-Lebanon tensions diplomatically.
The Iranian government, along with Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen, and armed groups in Iraq, formed an “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and U.S. S. influence—not to exploit any event to create unrest.
Major General Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, met with senior officers on Tuesday night to review the situation, the spokesman said, without directly addressing the explosions in Lebanon. Though “vigilance must continue to be maintained,” he said, no policy changes were announced.
This year, two people familiar with Hezbollah’s activities told Reuters that the fighters have been attempting to avoid Israeli location-tracking by using pagers as a low-tech form of communication. A pager is a wireless message recipient and display device.
INJURED MANY.
Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, was hospitalized under observation after sustaining a “superficial injury” during Tuesday’s pager blasts, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency. It was not possible for Reuters to verify the report instantly.
Per two security sources who spoke to Reuters, among the dead were fighters from Hezbollah who are the sons of senior officials in the armed organization. They said that among those slain was the son of Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah legislator from the Lebanese parliament.
There are not one, two, or three people being targeted for security purposes. “This is a deliberate attack on a whole country,” senior Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil said, expressing his sympathies for Ammar’s son.
Due to security concerns, Air France announced late on Tuesday that it would be suspending flights connecting Paris with Tel Aviv and Beirut through Thursday.
Hezbollah’s attempt to kill a former senior defense official in the coming days was thwarted, according to an earlier Tuesday statement from Israel’s domestic security agency.
Hezbollah has stated that although it wishes to prevent a full-scale war with Israel, cross-border clashes will only cease when the Gaza War comes to an end. Months of negotiations facilitated by Qatar, Egypt, and the US have resulted in no progress toward a Gaza ceasefire.
Experts expressed concern about escalation but were less optimistic about the likelihood of an impending full-scale Israel-Hezbollah war, which the U.S. s. aimed to stop and that it feels neither side desires.
CRYING OUT OF PAIN.
Ambulances raced through Beirut’s southern suburbs following the explosions on Tuesday, causing widespread fear.
A Reuters reporter witnessed motorcycles racing to the emergency room at Mount Lebanon Hospital outside of Beirut, and people with bloodied hands screaming in agony.
Hassan Wazni, the director of the public hospital in the southern part of the nation, told Reuters that about forty injured patients were receiving care there. The wounds included injuries to the limbs, face, and eyes.
After the October 20th attacks, Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel. The Gaza War was started by seven gunman from Hamas attacks on Israel. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have been trading gunfire without going into a major crisis.
Over the course of the past year, Hezbollah has suffered the loss of over 400 fighters as a result of Israeli strikes, including its top commander Fuad Shukr in July.
The fighting has driven tens of thousands of people from towns and villages on both sides of the border.
Restoring residents to their homes close to the Lebanon border was one of Israel’s official war objectives, as of Tuesday.
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Editing by Gareth Jones, Rod Nickel, and Stephen Coates; Writing by Nadine Awadalla, Clauda Tanios, Michael Georgy, and Cynthia Osterman; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick. Reporting by Laila Bassam, Maya Gebeily, Emilie Madi, and Tom Perry.
