Hezbollah has suffered what it described as the “biggest security breach” in almost a year of conflict with Israel after at least eight people were killed and thousands wounded on Tuesday after their pagers exploded, according to officials.
Lebanon’s health minister says some 2,800 people were wounded, including 200 seriously, mostly impacting the face, eyes, limbs, and abdomen.
The National News Agency, the Lebanese government-owned news agency, reported injuries in Beirut and the Marjeyoun District in southern Lebanon and blamed the explosions on the Israel Defense Forces, claiming the pagers were “detonated using advanced technology.” The IDF declined to comment to Reuters.
Among those killed were a 10-year-old girl in the village of Saraain and two Hezbollah members, said Hezbollah-controlled Al-Ahed News. Iranian state television reported that the country’s ambassador to Lebanon had one of the pagers that exploded and was injured.
Officials told all citizens who own pagers to throw them out immediately.
Footage circulated on social media, verified by Reuters, shows detonations taking place at food markets and by cashier stations. The explosions, which began around 3:45 p.m. local time and lasted for about an hour, come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a series of top-level security meetings on mounting tensions along Israel’s northern border. The IDF also released footage of recent airstrikes conducted on suspected Hezbollah weapons stores in Southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group, began using pagers, which were popular in the 1990s to receive and display messages, as part of a bid to frustrate Israel’s formidably high-tech surveillance infrastructure. Hezbollah has used other seemingly antiquated methods like landlines and coded messages to evade sophisticated detection.
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