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The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is braced for a response after Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind the pager explosions that has killed at least nine people.
Around 2,800 people have been left injured after a spree of simultaneous detonations of the handheld devices on Tuesday afternoon.
An advisor to Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad said that 200 people had sustained critical injuries, with an eight-year-old girl among the dead.
More than 50 ambulances and 300 emergency medical workers rushed to help the victims, with people urged to donate blood the Lebanese Red Cross said.
An investigation has been launched to determine the causes of the blasts, while one Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
The explosions occurred in a southern suburb of Beirut known as Dahiyeh, and other towns in central and southern Lebanon.
The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured by one of the blasts, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported. Two security sources also told Reuters that one of the fighters killed was the son of a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament.
The Israeli military has so far declined to comment.
Key Points
- Nine people killed and 2,800 wounded in ‘security incident’, says health minister
- IDF braced for Hezbollah retaliation
- Hezbollah place blame on Israel for pager blasts
- Pagers reportedly contained lithium batteries
Hundreds of pagers exploded in Lebanon and Syria in a deadly attack. Here's what we know.
In what appears to be a sophisticated, remote attack, pagers used by hundreds of members of Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria Tuesday, killing at least nine people — including a young girl — and wounding thousands more.
The Iran-backed militant group blamed Israel for the deadly explosions, which targeted an extraordinary breadth of people and showed signs of being a long-planned operation. How the attack was executed is largely uncertain and investigators have not immediately said how the pagers were detonated. The Israeli military has declined to comment.
Here’s what we know so far.
Read the full article here:
Hundreds of pagers exploded in Lebanon and Syria in a deadly attack. Here's what we know.
In what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack, pagers used by hundreds of members of Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria Tuesday — killing at least nine people, including a young girl, and wounding thousands more
Holly Evans18 September 2024 02:00 1726617600Most injuries are to the hands and face, health minister says
Lebanon’s health minister told the BBC that most of the injuries from Tuesday’s pager explosions had been to the hands and face.
Most “appear to be to the face and especially to the eyes, and also the hand with some amputations, whether it’s in the hands or the fingers,” he told the BBC’s Newshour programme.
He added that the “vast majority” presenting to emergency rooms are in civilian clothes, saying this makes it “very difficult to discern whether they belong to a certain entity like Hezbollah or others”.
“But we are seeing among them people who are old or people who are very young, like the child who unfortunately died, and there are some of them who are health care workers.”
Who are Hezbollah?
Formed in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, it is one of the strongest members of the Iran-allied alliance, militarily and organizationally.
A Shiite Muslim group, it took part in repeated attacks against the US through the mid-1990s, including the deadly 1983 bombing of a US Marines barrack in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital.
It has participated in Lebanon’s government since 1992 while its military wing is stronger than the country’s armed forces.
A 2006 war with Israel provoked by Hezbollah’s kidnapping of Israeli soldiers devastated southern Lebanon and Beirut, and many ordinary Lebanese are deeply fearful of a new war with Israel in the wake of the Gaza fighting.
Wary of a repeat of the war itself, Hezbollah has lobbed rockets and missiles across its southern border into Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, losing fighters daily in return fire, but held back from further dramatic escalation.
Air France suspends flights to Beirut and Tel Aviv
Air France is suspending services from the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport to Beirut and Tel Aviv up to and including 19 September due to escalating security concerns in the Middle East, the airline said on Tuesday.
The operations will resume following an assessment of the situation, Air France added.
Earlier in the day, Lufthansa Group said it is suspending all connections to and from Tel Aviv and Tehran and will bypass Israeli and Iranian airspace up to and including Sept. 19.
Holly Evans17 September 2024 23:49 1726612831Casualties are heavy toll on Hezbollah after year of fighting with Israel
The casualties included Hezbollah fighters who are the sons of top officials from the armed group, two security sources told Reuters. One of those killed was the son of a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, Ali Ammar, they said.
“This is not a security targeting of one, two or three people. This is a targeting of an entire nation,” senior Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil said while paying his condolences for Ammar’s son.
Tuesday’s blasts added to a hefty price paid over the past year by Hezbollah. The group has lost more than 400 fighters in Israeli strikes, including its top commander Fuad Shukr in July. Security sources in Lebanon said two more Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
Holly Evans17 September 2024 23:40 1726611631Lufthansa suspends flights to Tel Aviv and Tehran
The airline Lufthansa have announced they are suspending flights to Tel Aviv and Tehran with immediate effect.
In a statement, they said: “Due to the recent change in the security situation, the Lufthansa Group airlines have decided to suspend all connections to and from Tel Aviv (TLV) and Tehran (IKA) with immediate effect. This applies up to and including September 19. During this period, the Israeli and Iranian airspace will also be bypassed by all Lufthansa Group Airlines.
“The Lufthansa Group continues to monitor the situation closely and will assess it further in the coming days.”
Holly Evans17 September 2024 23:20 1726610731Israel has a long history of pulling off complex attacks like the exploding pagers
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government were quick to blame Israel for the nearly simultaneous detonation of hundreds of pagers used by the militant group’s members in an attack Tuesday that killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 3,000 others, according to officials.
Many of those hit were members of militant group Hezbollah, but it wasn’t immediately clear if others also carried the pagers. Among those killed were the son of a prominent Hezbollah politician and an 8-year-old girl, according to Lebanon’s health minister.
The attack came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among those injured by the pager explosions.
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Israel has a long history of pulling off complex attacks like the exploding pagers
Thousands of pagers used members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people and wounding several thousand, officials said
Holly Evans17 September 2024 23:05 1726609531Hezbollah vows to respond after multiple dead and thousands wounded in mass pager explosions
Hezbollah has vowed to respond after nine people were killed and around 2,800 wounded following the simultaneous explosion of hundreds of electronic pagers used by the militia to communicate.
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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Hezbollah vows to respond after multiple dead and thousands injured as pagers explode
A Hezbollah official said the explosions were the biggest security breach the group had experienced in nearly a year
Holly Evans17 September 2024 22:45 1726608303IDF braced for Hezbollah retaliation after pager explosions
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.
Holly Evans17 September 2024 22:25 1726607811UN special coordinator warns all8 actors to ‘refrain from further action’
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.
Holly Evans17 September 2024 22:16 Newer1 / 4OlderDisclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
