Hospital beds in front of the AUBMC entrance, on Sept. 18, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L’Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Thousands of people were injured across Lebanon on Tuesday afternoon when pagers belonging to Hezbollah exploded, nearly simultaneously, following declarations by Israel a couple days prior that "radical change" was needed on its northern front.
A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that the Mossad had implanted explosive material in 5,000 pagers, in what a Hezbollah official told the agency was "the largest security breach to date" for the party.
Security footage shows the pagers detonating in supermarkets, knocking the wearers to the ground. Pagers exploded in cars and on the street, and in videos shared online, holes can be seen blasted through bedroom furniture. Pagers distributed to Hezbollah members in Syria also exploded.
The blasts, which occurred around 3:30 p.m., were the result of an "Israeli hack," according to a source close to Hezbollah. One video shows a man receiving a message on his pager moments before it explodes. According to a New York Times report, a message appearing to come from Hezbollah leadership was sent to the pagers, triggering the blasts, meaning injuries to the face were likely on account of people reading the incoming message when the pagers were detonated. There were also reports that several people felt their pagers overheating and threw the devices away before they exploded.
Hospitals were quickly overwhelmed by patients with injuries, many critical, to the hands, face, and abdomen. The detonations killed 12 people and injured more than 2,800. Eight of the dead were announced by Hezbollah as party members, two victims were children, one was a young woman who worked as a nurse and another was also a healthcare worker.
One of the children, a 10-year-old girl, was killed when the pager exploded inside her home in Saraain, Bekaa.
Among those killed was Mahdi, the son of Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar. Initial reports suggested that MP Hassan Fadlallah’s son was also killed, but Fadlallah later denied this, though some local media have reported his son is seriously injured. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing Saudi sources, reported that senior Hezbollah officials were also injured, though the party has not confirmed this.
Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, lost one eye and suffered severe injuries to the other when a pager he was carrying exploded yesterday, according to two members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps briefed on the attack, as reported by NYT. The Guard members, who spoke anonymously due to restrictions on public statements, revealed that Amani's injuries were more severe than Iran had initially disclosed and that he would be evacuated to Tehran for treatment.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was reportedly unharmed, according to a Hezbollah official cited by Reuters and is set to deliver a televised address on Thursday.
These pagers, mostly used in the 1990s and still employed by healthcare workers, are small wireless communication devices. Unlike mobile phones, they are harder to track and can function in areas with limited cell coverage. Because they don’t require SIM cards or internet connections, they are more challenging to monitor and locate. The pagers involved in the explosions were reportedly "the latest model" introduced by Hezbollah in recent months.
Hospitals on 'maximum alert'
Overwhelmed hospitals, placed on "maximum alert" by the Health Ministry, were treating victims who had lost fingers or suffered severe abdominal wounds. Ambulances were rushing in and out with sirens blaring, while family members gathered anxiously around medical facilities.
Dr. Hassan Wazni, director of the Nabih Berri Hospital in Nabatieh, where 47 severely injured people were treated, described a horrific scene. "All the injured arrived at the same time, most with facial and hand injuries, and some with abdominal wounds; we had to run emergency CT scans, X-rays and tests before urgent surgeries," he told L'Orient Today.
The health ministry announced that the state would cover the victims' medical expenses. The Lebanese Red Cross and Civil Defense were also intensively mobilized to transport the wounded and secure blood supplies.
The director of Sainte-Therese Hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut said that hospitals were "ready" to handle such an influx of injuries, thanks to measures put in place in recent months by the ministry, but additional equipment was still needed.
In Syria too
Lebanon wasn’t the only country affected by the attacks. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a London-based NGO close to the opposition, reported that a "number of Hezbollah members" stationed in Syria alongside regime forces were hospitalized in Damascus after the explosion of radio devices they were carrying. A walkie-talkie reportedly exploded inside a car driving near the Kafr Sousa neighborhood in Damascus.
While Israel has yet to claim responsibility for the operation, the party blamed it for the attack. Three U.S. officials told Axios that Israel had decided to go forward with the pager operation earlier than intended because they were worried Hezbollah had caught on to the plan. Al-Monitor had reported that two Hezbollah operators had raised concerns about the pagers. According to Axios, when U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday, Israeli leaders, including the prime minister, were in intense discussions around the operation.
Hezbollah has vowed to deliver a "just punishment" in response.
The pager explosions occurred amid relentless Israeli airstrikes along the Blue Line, which killed at least five people on Tuesday: three in an air raid on Blida — two Hezbollah fighters and one from Islamic Jihad — and two others in a strike on Majdel Selm, according to the Health Ministry.
