Array
Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding some 2,800 in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the wave of explosions, which came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah along its border with Lebanon.
The blasts “killed nine people, including a girl,” Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said.
He added that some “2,800 people were injured, about 200 of them critically” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands and stomach.
The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, the family and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) source close to the group said.
A son of Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar was also among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut was wounded in a pager explosion but his injuries were not serious, Iranian state media reported.
The influx of so many casualties all at once overwhelmed hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds.
At one hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an AFP correspondent saw people being treated in a car park on thin mattresses, with medical gloves on the ground and ambulance stretchers covered in blood.
“In all my life I’ve never seen someone walking on the street… and then explode,” said Musa, a resident of the southern suburbs, requesting to be identified only by his first name.
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert denounced in a statement “an extremely concerning escalation,” urging all sides to refrain from any action “which could trigger a wider conflagration that nobody can afford.
