This is the “biggest security breach” that the Lebanese militant group has faced since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Ticking Time Bombs
More than a dozen people were killed and around 2,800 others, including many Hezbollah members, were wounded across Lebanon and parts of Syria on Tuesday when the pagers they used to communicate exploded almost simultaneously. This was the “biggest security breach” that Hezbollah has faced since the Israel-Hamas war began nearly a year ago, a Hezbollah official told Reuters.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said some hospitals have already reached full capacity, with most victims reporting wounds to the face, hands, or stomach. Security forces have urged locals to stay off the roads to allow passage for ambulances, and Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry has placed hospitals on “maximum alert,” appealing for blood donations and calling on health care workers to head to their places of work immediately. Anyone with pagers was instructed to throw them away.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for the detonations, and the militant group vowed retribution. Israel has declined to comment. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States was not involved in the apparent attack and had no advance knowledge of it. He would not speculate on who might be responsible, saying the Biden administration was “gathering information” on the incident.
Top Israeli security officials convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss options for addressing the escalating situation with Hezbollah. Hours earlier, Israel’s security cabinet announced that countering Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel and ensuring the safe return of its 60,000 residents were official war goals. The only way to do this is through “military action,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday. More than 100,000 people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have been displaced since near-daily tit-for-tat attacks began last October.
Hezbollah announced on Tuesday that it is investigating the cause of the explosions. A Hezbollah official told the Wall Street Journal that malware could have caused the devices to heat up and explode. The pagers were reportedly called a few seconds before they detonated to potentially increase the likelihood that someone would pick up the device and be maximally wounded.
Among those injured included Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, though he said in a phone call after the incident that he was “feeling well and fully conscious.” Tehran backs both Hezbollah and Hamas in their fight against Israel and has attacked Israel directly. Of the nearly 3,000 people injured, roughly 200 were critically wounded, meaning they required surgery. Nine of those killed were in Lebanon, and seven were in Syria. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was reportedly unharmed.
Israel’s Shin Bet security agency also said on Tuesday that it had foiled a Hezbollah plot to assassinate a former senior defense official in the coming days. This was the third time that a Hezbollah explosive device was discovered in Israel in the past two years. Israeli authorities did not name the targeted official.
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