RIGHT NOW: At least nine dead – and 2,750 injured

Lebanon

Explosions in Lebanon - 2,750 injured

Emil Forsberg

Updated 19.20 | Published 16.14

At the given signal, pagers and walkie-talkies exploded.

Nine people have died and at least 2,750 have been injured.

Now Israel is accused of having tampered with the communication devices.

The pagers said to belong to members of the Lebanese armed group Hizbollah have been hacked and exploded at the same time, reports Al Jazeera.

2,750 people are said to have been injured. Several Hezbollah leaders are among the injured, according to local media.

Videos on social media show how the hospital is overrun with bloody people.

Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, is also said to be among the injured. His condition is not considered serious.

In Syria, a number of Hezbollah supporters have also been taken to hospital after their walkie-talkie devices exploded in a car they were traveling in, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, according to Haaretz.

Eight people and 2,750 people are said to have been injured in the explosions. Photo: Ibrahim Amro / AFP

A few months ago, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged his followers on Lebanon's southern border to stop using smartphones because they can be manipulated.

After that, a decision was made to use other communication systems as pagers instead.

Ramy Khouty who works at the American University of Beirut says the pager explosions are the most dangerous Hezbollah has faced in years.

"It's very unusual and really worrying for Hezbollah and its allies because it means that Israel has the capacity and intelligence to carry out attacks far beyond what people assumed," he told Al Jazeera.

 "Throw away the pagers"

The Ministry of Health has now ordered hospitals to go on high alert and urges citizens to throw away their pagers.

According to AFP sources, Israel is behind the attack.

The pagers must have been purchased in recent months, security sources told Reuters.

According to Lebanese LBC, the hackers may have caused the battery to overheat and explode.

Israel has not yet commented on the incident. According to Israeli media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sitting in a meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. 

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Hezbollah vows revenge for the attack in Lebanon

Martin Yngve/TT

Updated 19.05 | Published 15.36

 

An injured person whose search engine exploded is being cared for in Beirut.
1 / 2Photo: Hussein Malla/AP/TT

Nearly 3,000 people have been injured and at least nine killed after pagers exploded in what appears to be a coordinated attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Iran-backed militia vows revenge for the attack.

One by one, hundreds of seekers exploded around Lebanon. Local media state that it is about over 1,000 pagers that exploded over the course of just over an hour after first signaling incoming calls.

At least nine people have died in the explosions. Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad says at least 2,750 people have been injured, 200 of them seriously. Most injuries are in the hands or stomach.

Hezbollah says a ten-year-old girl was killed when her father's tracker exploded.

The Iran-backed militia points, without evidence, to Israel as "fully responsible" for the explosions and states that its response will come "where the enemy expects and where it does not expect".

Urged to donate blood

The victims will mainly be members of Hezbollah, but also private individuals and healthcare personnel. Iran's ambassador to Lebanon was also injured, according to a statement.

Images from surveillance cameras in Beirut show how the devices explode in small explosions that knock over the people carrying them.

Witnesses said that panic spread as the searchers began to explode, which according to Reuters lasted for more than half an hour, mainly in Beirut and southern Lebanon.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors events in the war-torn country in exile in the UK, says that 14 Hezbollah members in Syria have been hit.

The authorities appeal to private individuals to donate blood. All persons who own a viewfinder are also urged to dispose of them and to stay away from wireless communication devices, including mobile phones.

Own system

The explosions came just hours after Israel's Shin Bet security police announced that it had foiled an assassination attempt against a high-ranking member of the security services.

In addition, late Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced that it had updated the war aims to now include "the safe return of residents of the north to their homes."

Hezbollah uses its own telecom system to communicate, including with seekers. The militia has urged its members to avoid mobile phones to avoid the system being hacked.

Since the war in Gaza broke out with the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, Israel and Hezbollah have attacked each other on a daily basis.

FACTS

Hezbollah

An Islamist movement, created in the early 1980s as a reaction to a conflict situation that is very similar to today's. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had used southern Lebanon as a base for attacks on northern Israel, prompting Israel to invade in 1982.

Inspired by the Islamic revolution in Iran a few years earlier, Lebanese Islamists formed Hezbollah ("Party of God"), a name chosen by Iranian leader Khomeini.

A stated main goal has been to throw out all "colonialists". In practice, this has meant that much of the armed struggle has been directed against Israel - seen as the West's representative in the Middle East.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah functions as "a state within a state", with a military power at least as large as the country's army and a strong role in politics and social life.