The militant group Hezbollah said on Tuesday that the pagers belonged to its members he had jumped all over Lebanonkilling at least eight people and injuring more than 2,700, according to the country’s Ministry of Health.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has laid the blame for the widespread and apparently simultaneous explosions in Israel, without providing evidence. Israel did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the accusations and explosions.
More than 200 people were in critical condition, the Minister of Public Health, Dr. Firas Abiad, he told reporters. According to The Associated Press and Al Jazeeraofficials updated the death toll after Abiad’s press conference.
During the emergency, Lebanese officials ordered the public to avoid using portable communication devices.
Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, was among the wounded, according to the country’s embassy. In a post on Xhe described his injuries as “superficial” and added that he was in good condition.
Hezbollah said in its statement that the blasts killed “a girl and two brothers.”
He added that the blasts came from pagers belonging to “employees in various Hezbollah units and institutions.”
One of those killed was Muhammad Mahdi, the son of Ali Ammar, a member of the Hezbollah Parliament, according to the National News Agency, which has been.
Hezbollah says it has distributed pagers to members, many of whom have stopped using cellphones for fear Israel could use them to track and monitor them.
“The ministry asks all citizens who own wireless communication devices to stay away from them until the truth of what is happening is revealed,” the Ministry of Health said, according to NNA.
It was unclear whether the blasts were part of a coordinated attack, which represents a significant security breach for Hezbollah.
Matt Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, told reporters in a briefing that the United States was not aware of the “incident” in advance and was “gathering information” about the detonations.
The Lebanese Red Cross said deployed 130 ambulances to respond to those injured by explosions, with 170 more vehicles on standby. The country’s civil emergency authority urged people to donate blood in hospitals “as soon as possible”, state news said.
Reuters said dozens of Hezbollah members were seriously wounded in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut.
A Reuters reporter saw 10 Hezbollah members bleeding from wounds in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, the agency said. It was not clear how many civilians were affected.
As of late Tuesday afternoon local time, no one had claimed responsibility for the explosions, some of which appeared to have been captured on closed-circuit TV video and shared on social media.
In a second statement, Hezbollah said it had reviewed “all facts” and information and held Israel responsible for the blasts, which occurred a day after Israel announced a new war target, fueling fears of a new military offensive in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry condemned what it called an “Israeli cyber attack,” adding that it would lodge a complaint about the detonations with the UN Security Council.
“This dangerous and deliberate Israeli escalation is accompanied by Israeli threats to expand the scope of the war towards Lebanon on a large scale, and the intransigence of Israeli positions that call for more blood, destruction and devastation,” he said in a statement. .
Former CIA director John Brennan told NBC News that he believed the pagers had some sort of explosives in the hardware based in part on the scale and simultaneous nature of the attack. He speculated that the pagers were at some point intercepted and changed “to ones that Hezbollah thought would be benign.”
“All suspicions must rest on Israel to be the responsible party,” Brennan said.
He added that he believed Israel’s intention was to send a message to Hezbollah about its capabilities to reach the militia in Lebanon.
Israel has warned the United States, its closest ally, that “military action” would likely be the only way to deal with growing hostilities with Hezbollah.
Late Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that his Security Cabinet had updated its list of war objectives to include the safe return of residents who were displaced from their houses near the northern border because of months of fighting with Hezbollah.
“Israel will continue to act to implement this goal,” the prime minister’s office said.
Thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Israel launched an offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7. Hezbollah has vowed to continue attacks until the end of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Israeli tensions with Hezbollah, a powerful militia and political party that was formed in 1986 and rose to power after Israel invaded southern Lebanon in pursuit of Palestine Liberation Organization fighters, have are developed during the war in Gaza.
Last month, Israel struck Lebanon with what it said were preemptive strikes to forestall Hezbollah’s plans to launch a widespread assault across the countries’ shared border.
The attacks came weeks after Israel assassinated a Hezbollah commander, Fouad Shukur. Hezbollah sought revenge by launching a drone attack on Israel’s Glilot base, which is near Tel Aviv.
International diplomats, particularly those from the United States and France, have been working for months to defuse the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in an effort to contain the war in Gaza.