Exploding pagers injure hundreds in Lebanon, health minister says
Hundreds of people were injured across Lebanon when their pagers exploded earlier today, health minister Firass Abiad has said, with a source close to Hezbollah telling Agence France-Presse (AFP) its members were targeted. No deaths have been reported.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those who were injured by the explosions, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.
Key events
More than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were injured when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, security sources told Reuters. This figure – which we have not yet independently verified – is far higher than the hundreds of injuries estimated in earlier reports.
In other developments:
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The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources told Reuters.
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The head of the Nabatieh public hospital in southern Lebanon, Hassan Wazni, told Reuters that around 40 injured people were being treated at his facility, including for wounds to the face, eyes and limbs.
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The Lebanese Red Cross said more than 50 ambulances and 300 emergency medical staff were dispatched to help in the evacuation of victims.
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There has been no official comment by Israel yet about the simultaneous explosions in Lebanon.
Summary of the day so far …
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Hundreds of members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, including fighters and medics, were seriously injured on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded, a security source told Reuters. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those who were injured by the explosions, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported. A Hezbollah official said the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel. No deaths have been reported. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP the explosions were an “Israeli breach” of its communications.
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Israel’s domestic security agency said it had foiled a plot by Hezbollah to assassinate a former senior defence official in the coming days. The Shin Bet agency said it had seized an explosive device attached to a remote detonation system, using a mobile phone and a camera, that Hezbollah had planned to operate from Lebanon.
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At least 41,252 Palestinian people have been killed and 95,497 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said.
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The Palestinian education ministry said 11,001 students – from schools and universities – have been killed and 17,772 injured in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank since 7 October 2023.
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There are reports that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is contemplating firing his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and replacing him with Gideon Saar, a member of the opposition and the New Hope party leader. Israel’s Business Forum, which consists of 200 heads of Israel’s largest companies that employ many private sector workers, urged Netanyahu to keep Gallant in his position as defence minister, saying it would create more division and weaken the country if he was let go.
The Israeli daily Haaretz is reporting that the local council head of the northern Israeli town of Shlomi, Gabi Na’aman, has urged residents to stay near shelters.
Na’aman wrote:
Due to the unique security situation in which we have found ourselves in the past hour, I ask out of an abundance of caution to stay near your children and your shelters.
Exploding pagers injure hundreds in Lebanon, health minister says
Hundreds of people were injured across Lebanon when their pagers exploded earlier today, health minister Firass Abiad has said, with a source close to Hezbollah telling Agence France-Presse (AFP) its members were targeted. No deaths have been reported.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those who were injured by the explosions, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.
Regional broadcasters carrying CCTV footage which showed what appeared to be a small handheld device placed next to a grocery store cashier where an individual was paying spontaneously exploding. In other footage, an explosion appeared to knock out someone standing at a fruit stand at a market area.
Lebanon’s crisis operations center has asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of injured people coming into for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the incident was a result of an “Israeli breach” of its communications.
Detonation of pagers in Lebanon ‘biggest security breach’ Hezbollah has faced since start of the war, official says
We have some more information on the reports that dozens of Hezbollah members were injured in Lebanon after the devices they use for communications exploded (see earlier post at 14.11).
A Hezbollah official has told Reuters that the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
A Reuters journalist saw ambulances rushing through the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, with residents saying explosions were taking place even 30 minutes after the initial blasts.
There are reports – not yet verified by the Guardian – that the security breach that led to the explosions happened simultaneously in Beirut, Mount Lebanon and Dahieh.
Since October, Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group from Lebanon, has carried out strikes on Israeli targets, saying they were in solidarity with Palestinians impacted by Israel’s war on Gaza.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said efforts to forge a Gaza truce, being mediated alongside Egypt and the US, were “ongoing”.
Recent mediation in Doha and Cairo has been based on a framework laid out in May by the US president, Joe Biden, and a “bridging proposal” presented to Hamas and Israel in August. The May proposal offered a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip.
“The efforts are still ongoing and channels of communication remain open… the goals and visits and meetings are ongoing,” Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, told reporters.
The US state department said yesterday that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, would visit Egypt this week to “discuss ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire”, his tenth trip to the region since October.
Pressure inside Israel for a deal has intensified after authorities announced the deaths of six hostages at the start of September after their bodies were recovered from a Gaza tunnel.
But in the face of the external calls for an agreement, both Israel and Hamas have publicly signalled deeper entrenchment in their negotiating positions.
A major impasse in the negotiations has been the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and the Netzarim east-west corridor across the territory. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has claimed that Israel should retain control of the corridors to prevent smuggling and catch militant fighters. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, however, is demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Dozens of Hezbollah members injured in Lebanon when pagers exploded – report
The Reuters news agency has been told by sources that dozens of members of Hezbollah were seriously injured today in Lebanon’s south, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, when the pagers they use to communicate exploded.
A Reuters journalist saw 10 Hezbollah members bleeding from wounds in the southern suburb of Beirut known as Dahiyeh. These claims have not yet been independently verified by the Guardian.
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, has reported that Israel’s security forces have demolished two homes belonging to Palestinians in Khirbet Jbara, south of the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
One of those whose home was destroyed, Muhammad Jabara, said that he had not been able to remove family possessions from the building before the Israeli forces demolished the house.
In the last hour Israel’s military has reported on its official Telegram channel that “a number of UAVs were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Some of the UAVs were intercepted and some fell in an area adjacent to Ramot Naftali. No injuries were reported.”
Sirens have been sounding in northern Israel “due to the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception”, it said.
Lebanon’s house speaker, Nabih Berri, met with the head of Unrwa Philippe Lazzarini today. Lebanese state media reports that:
Lazzarini expressed concern over the escalating conflict, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, and the growing tensions between Israel and Lebanon.
He highlighted the increasing displacement on both sides of the border and emphasised the need for preparedness, while hoping to avoid further escalation.
Moreover, Lazzarini also raised concerns about continuous attacks on Unrwa and Israeli efforts to dismantle the agency, mentioning that its facilities and staff in Gaza face daily threats.
Al Jazeera reports that its verification unit has ascertained via satellite imagery that in the northern Gaza Strip, Israel has completely destroyed nine UN-run schools, and partially destroyed three others that had been sheltering displaced civilians.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel.
Here are some of the latest images coming from the newswires out of Gaza:
Israel says it thwarted Hezbollah plot to kill former defence official
Israel’s domestic security agency said it had foiled a plot by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to assassinate a former senior defence official in the coming days, Reuters reports. The official was not named.
The Shin Bet agency said it had seized an explosive device attached to a remote detonation system, using a mobile phone and a camera, that Hezbollah had planned to operate from Lebanon.
Shin Bet said the attempted attack was similar to a Hezbollah plot foiled in Tel Aviv a year ago, without giving further details.
There have been near daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since 7 October 2023, when Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, stormed into Israeli communities and military bases, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages.
Patrick Wintour
Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for the Guardian
The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said Tehran has shown restraint so far in its response to the Israeli assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh because it believes Israel has been trying to lure it into a regional war.
Pezeshkian, a reformist who was elected unexpectedly three months ago, was speaking at a wide-ranging and unprecedented two-and-half-hour press conference in which nearly half of the questions were from foreign media.
“What Israel has done in the region and what Israel tried with the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran was to drag us into a regional war,” he told reporters. “We have exercised restraint so far but we reserve the right to defend ourselves at a specific time and place with specific methods.”
It remains a matter of debate whether Pezeshkian, who has a frank, consensual style, has access to the real levers of power or the political will to transform Iran’s relations with the west. But his use of a large international platform and often unpretentious direct manner suggests he is a new and unpredictable element in Iranian politics.
You can read the full story here: