The US was warned about the attacks

 

The pager explosions in Lebanon 2024
Details: Israel notified the US of the attacks on Tuesday

Rebecca Rosengart

Updated 16.44 | Published 08.47

Place and day - but no other details.

Israel informed the US that it planned to carry out an operation on Tuesday, sources told CNN.

The American officials should not have seen the warning as serious.

On Thursday, the IDF admitted that it is attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. "The IDF is currently striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon to degrade Hezbollah's terrorist capabilities and infrastructure," the military writes on X.
In the past, several media have stated, with reference to sources, that it is Israel that is behind the explosions that have taken place in Lebanon in recent days. According to CNN, the US learned that an operation was to be carried out by Israel the day the pagers exploded in the pockets of Hezbollah members.

This is said to have taken place, among other things, through a telephone conversation between US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin and Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The remains of blown pagers. Photo: AP

However, no details about what would happen or how the operation would go about have reached the United States. Sources told CNN that the description Israel gave of the operation was vague.

The US strongly denies that it knew what exactly was going to happen on Tuesday. But a source told Axios that they did not take the information they received seriously.

Got the news on a plane to Cairo

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the country "did not know about or was involved in these incidents." He is said to have been on a plane from Washington to Cairo when he heard the news of the explosions. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also makes it clear that they had not received any information about the pager explosions in advance.

Defense Ministers Austin and Gallant are said to have spoken a second time after the attacks on Tuesday, but no one wants to go into more detail about what they talked about.

Mourners carry coffins of people killed in the major coordinated attack. Photo: Bilal Hussein / AP

One of those injured in the attacks during the week was Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, according to Iranian state media. The US is said to have contacted Iran and asked them not to escalate the situation.

It was on Tuesday that the first wave of electronics explosions took place in Lebanon, resulting in several deaths and thousands of injuries. The pagers that exploded were used by Hezbollah members as a means of communication. On Wednesday, a similar attack took place - but this time their walkie-talkies exploded.

The current death toll is at least 20 people, and around 3,000 people have been reported injured in the attacks.

Several distance themselves from the act

Petra de Sutter, Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium writes on X that she condemns the enormous terrorist attack and demands an international investigation. EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borell also condemns the attack.

Russia's Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, is said to have said in a statement that: "We consider this incident to be another act of hybrid war against Lebanon, which has affected thousands of innocent people."

Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry called the pager explosions a "terrorist attack".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein / AP