At least 12 people, including two children, are reported to have been killed after thousands of hand-held pagers used by members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday (September 17). Around 3,000 users and bystanders were wounded by the simultaneous blasts of at least 2,800 pagers in Beirut, several other Lebanese regions and in Syria. Some reports say many more devices may have been detonated in the sophisticated remote operation, in an escalation of hostilities linked to the Gaza war.
Walkie-talkies and solar equipment exploded in an apparent second wave of attacks on Wednesday (September 18), killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 450, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Ambulance sirens blared throughout southern Beirut for a second consecutive day as hospitals were overwhelmed with the wounded, scores of whom are reported to be in a critical or serious condition. Some had lost their hands, fingers and eyes while others suffered serious injuries to their faces, hips and legs after carrying the pagers in their pockets or on their belts.
While the pagers were used by Hezbollah members, many of the casualties were not fighters, but civilian workers serving Lebanon’s Shiite community.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for what it called “this criminal aggression” and vowed that it would get “just retribution”. The Israeli military declined to comment. An American official said Israel briefed the United States after the conclusion of Tuesday’s operation, in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated. The US “was not aware of this incident in advance” and was not involved, officials said,
In the first wave of attacks, The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosive material in around 5,000 Taiwan-branded Gold Apollo pagers made under licence by a Budapest-based company before they were sent to Lebanon, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation.
The explosive material was implanted next to the battery with a switch that could be triggered remotely to detonate. The pagers were apparently acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members in February to stop using cellphones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence.
Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based former war correspondent and senior political risk analyst, told The Associated Press he spoke with Hezbollah members who had examined pagers that failed to explode. He said the blasts appeared to have been triggered by what appeared to be an error message sent to all the devices that caused them to vibrate, forcing the user to click on the buttons to stop the vibration. The combination detonated a small amount of explosives hidden inside the pagers and ensured that the user was present when the blast went off. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon reportedly suffered superficial wounds.
The explosions came hours after Israel’s internal security agency said it had foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to kill a former senior Israeli security official using a planted explosive device that could be remotely detonated. Experts said the pager explosions pointed to a long-planned operation, most likely carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the devices with explosives before they were delivered to Lebanon.
The Associated Press reports: “The pager bombings are likely to stoke Hezbollah’s worries about vulnerabilities in security and communications as Israeli officials threaten to escalate their months-long conflict. The near-daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have killed hundreds in Lebanon and several dozen in Israel, and have displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.”
