Beirut: Hezbollah said it holds Israel “fully responsible” for pager explosions across Lebanon, which killed at least nine people and wounded 2,750 others, including a young girl. At least 200 of the wounded are in critical condition.
Israel declined to comment on the detonations. The simultaneous explosions came less than 24 hours after the Israeli cabinet expanded goals for the war on Gaza to include returning residents displaced by Hezbollah’s attacks in northern Israel to their homes.
citing two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, has reported that Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, lost one eye and is severely injured in the other due to yesterday’s pager explosions.
The guards told the outlet that the ambassador’s injuries were more serious than initially stated and that he would be medically evacuated to Tehran for treatment.
“One of the Guards members said the pagers, including the one used by the ambassador, beeped for about 10 seconds before exploding, prompting some victims to hold the devices close to their eyes and faces to check for a message. Hence the large number of severe eye injuries,” said NYT journalist Farnaz Fassihi.
Israel planted explosives in 5,000 Hezbollah pagers: Report
Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah before the detonations on Tuesday.
A senior Lebanese source as saying that the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service “at the production level”.
“The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner,” the source said.
They added that 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
Another security source told that up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the new pagers and had gone “undetected” by Hezbollah for months.
Iranian media had earlier stated that Amini was “lightly” injured from the attackIn the Gaza Strip, at least eight Palestinians were killed and 80 more were feared dead under the rubble following an Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp. Medics said at least 22 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave on Tuesday.
At least 41,252 people have been killed and 95,497 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. In Israel, the number of those killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 was at least 1,139 while more than 200 people were taken captive.
