Nine killed, 2,800 hurt as Hezbollah fighters’ pagers explode in Lebanon

Nine people have been killed and 2,800 others — including an undetermined number of members of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah — were injured Tuesday when hundreds of handheld pagers exploded simultaneously on Tuesday, in an apparently unprecedented operation by the Mossad, Israel’s notorious foreign secret services.

The Hezbollah militia said it holds Israel “fully responsible” for the attack. “This criminal and treacherous enemy will definitely receive a fair punishment for this sinful assault, both in ways that are expected and unexpected,” it said, vowing retribution.

The coordinated attack brings to an even more dangerous point the war of attrition that Israel and Hezbollah have been waging for almost a year. It is also one of Hezbollah’s biggest security breaches since its birth in the 1980s, precisely during the occupation of southern Lebanon, which Israel ended in 2000.

In the early afternoon, social networks and messaging groups began to be flooded with images capturing the explosion and of wounded people on the ground in different parts of Lebanon, including in Hezbollah fiefdoms such as Dahieh, on the outskirts of Beirut, and in the south of the country. The explosions began around 16.00 local time and lasted about an hour. It is not known how they occurred.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported at least nine people have died and 2,800 are injured, of whom 200 are in very serious condition. Two of the victims are members of Hezbollah and another is a 10-year-old girl, the militia said. Some hospitals have collapsed due to the arrival of so many wounded people in such a short time. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also mildly injured, according to the Mehr news agency. Fourteen Hezbollah members in Syria were also wounded, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was not affected, according to the group. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al Sudani has ordered Iraqi medical teams to be sent to Lebanon to provide urgent aid.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States was not aware of who caused the explosions. “The US was not aware of this incident in advance, and at this point, we’re gathering information,” Miller said in a statement. “I don’t have any assessment to offer one way or other at this point,” he added.

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