Hundreds of people were injured across Lebanon on Tuesday, September 17, when their pagers exploded, Health Minister Firass Abiad said. A source close to Hezbollah told news agency AFP that its members were targeted and that dozens of Hezbollah members were injured in the incident.
Reuters reported, citing sources, that Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers ordered by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations. “The plot appears to have been many months in the making,” several sources told Reuters.
According to the Associated Press, on Wednesday, Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria were made by a company in Budapest.
1. Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said at least nine people were killed and some 2,800 were injured in pager explosions across the country on Tuesday, September 17. Among those wounded was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon.
2. The sons of Hezbollah lawmakers Ali Ammar and Hassan Fadlallah were among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP. "Hundreds of Hezbollah members were injured by the simultaneous explosion of their pagers" in the group's strongholds in Beirut's southern suburbs, in south Lebanon and in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah source said.
3. In neighbouring Syria, 14 people were wounded "after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded", said a Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
4. Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, blamed Israel for the attack. Hezbollah earlier said its members used the pagers. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the wave of explosions.
"We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression," Hezbollah said in a statement, adding that Israel "will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression".
5. "Fourteen people whose nationalities are unknown have been wounded in Damascus and its countryside after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
6. The US, Israel's close ally, said it was 'not involved' and 'not aware' in advance of Lebanon pager blasts. "I can tell you that the US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we're gathering information," US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
7. The US also urged Iran to avoid furthering 'tensions' after Hezbollah pager blasts. "We would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident to try to add further instability and to further increase tensions in the region," US State Department sp Matthew Miller said.
8. The UN said Lebanon pager blasts mark 'extremely concerning escalation'. "The developments today mark an extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context," UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement.
9. Hezbollah had earlier instructed its members to avoid mobile phones after the Gaza war began and to rely instead on the group's own telecommunications system to prevent Israeli breaches.
According to the Associated Press, the pagers that blew up had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members to stop using cell phones in February. A Hezbollah official told the Associated Press the pagers were new but declined to say how long they had been in use.
10. The mysterious explosions came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the October 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.
