- Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among those wounded by the simultaneous blasts which happened in Beirut and several other regions.
- Health Minister Firas Abiad said most of the wounds were to the face, hands and stomach.
Image: BBC/AGENCY
Eight people, including a child, have been killed and nearly 3,000 injured after handheld pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah to communicate exploded across Lebanon, the country’s health minister says.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among those wounded by the simultaneous blasts which happened in Beirut and several other regions.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and that at least two fighters were among the dead.
The group blamed Israel for what it called “this criminal aggression” and vowed that it would get “just retribution”. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Israel has been exchanging fire with Hezbollah since last October in parallel with the Gaza war, raising fears of a wider regional conflict.
The UN said the developments were extremely concerning, given the “volatile” context.
Hezbollah relies heavily on pagers for communications. The group has warned its members to stop using mobile phones because they could be hacked or tracked by Israeli security forces.
An unspecified number of pagers exploded in multiple areas of Lebanon at around 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT), according to Hezbollah.
One CCTV video showed an explosion in a man’s bag at a supermarket. The man is then seen falling backwards to the ground and crying out in pain as other shoppers run for cover.
Health Minister Firas Abiad said most of the wounds were to the face, hands and stomach.
Iranian state TV reported that Iran’s ambassador in Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, suffered "superficial" injuries in one of the explosions.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” Hezbollah said on 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,” it added.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati also blamed Israel for the explosions, saying that they represented a “serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards”.
Hezbollah did not say what it believed had caused the pagers to explode.
But a former British Army munitions expert, who asked not to be named, told the BBC the pagers would have likely been packed with between 10g and 20g of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component.
Once armed by a signal, called an alphanumeric text message, the next person to use the device would have triggered the explosive, the expert said.
Lina Khatib, a Middle East analyst at the UK-based Chatham House think tank, told the BBC: "Israel has been engaging in cyber operations against Hezbollah for several months, but this security breach is the largest in scale.”
“The timing coincides with rising public pressure in Israel on the government to secure the country's northern border with Lebanon,” she added. “Instead of military action, which Hezbollah would be able to withstand, this attack aims to paralyse Hezbollah and significantly limit its options for manoeuvre against Israel.”
Although there has been no comment from Israel, the events come hours after the country’s security cabinet made the safe return of 60,000 residents displaced in the north by Hezbollah attacks an official goal of the Gaza war.
Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a meeting with US envoy Amos Hochstein on Monday that the only way to return northern residents was through "military action".
“The possibility for an agreement is running out as Hezbollah continues to ‘tie itself’ to Hamas, and refuses to end the conflict,” a statement from his office said.
There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October.
Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Palestinian group. Both are backed by Iran and proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.
Since October, at least 589 people have been killed in Lebanon, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
On the Israeli side, 25 civilians and 21 members of security forces have been killed, the Israeli government says.