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More injuries evacuated to hospitals in southern Lebanon
We have some more information about the reported explosions of the devices used for communications by Hezbollah members. Several people were wounded in the eastern parts of the district of Marjayoun and taken to the local governmental hospital, the NNA reports.
Others were injured in Hermel, and some of the wounded were taken to the Lebanese Italian Hospital in Tyre, the agency said.
Lebanese Red Cross ambulances evacuating wounded in south
The Lebanese Red Cross says more than 30 of its ambulances are taking part in the treatment and evacuation of the wounded as a result of multiple explosions in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa governorate and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Fifty additional ambulances in Mount Lebanon and Beirut have been put on high alert to support rescue and evacuation operations, it added.
Hezbollah reliant on pagers for personal communication
Military analyst Elijah Magnier tells Al Jazeera that Hezbollah relies heavily on pagers to avoid Israel intercepting its members’ communications. He suggested these devices might have been tampered with before they were dispersed among Hezbollah members.
“This is not a new system. It has been used in the past,” he said. “So in this case, there has been involvement of a third party … to allow access … to remotely activate the explosion,” he said.
Lebanese Health Ministry asks hospitals to be on high alert
The Public Health Emergency Operation Center of the Ministry of Public Health has issued an urgent statement saying a “large number of people with various injuries are arriving at Lebanese hospitals, and it has been initially determined that the injuries are related to the explosion of wireless devices that were in the possession of the injured”.
The ministry is urging all hospitals in various Lebanese regions to be on maximum alert and raise their level of readiness to meet the urgent need for emergency health services.
It also asked hospitals to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Health to quickly distribute the injuries as needed and ensure the speedy start of their treatment.
“The ministry requests all citizens who own wireless communication devices to stay away from them until the truth of what is happening is revealed,” it said in a statement.
‘There are more than 400 men here’
We’ve begun to get accounts from witnesses of the explosions in various parts of Lebanon. “We don’t have room any more in the hospital,” a woman in Beirut said. “There are more than 400 men here. Their pagers exploded, the ones they use for communication.”
‘A blow to Hezbollah’
We are talking about hundreds of members of the group in hospitals. We are seeing videos online of injuries to their arms, to their legs, even to their faces.
The Lebanese Health Ministry is calling on doctors and nurses to head to hospitals to help with this mass casualty event. We have to remember that this is a country facing multiple crises.
The economy has all but collapsed. The state is nearly bankrupt. Hospitals really have been struggling. There are not enough doctors, not enough nurses, so this is a crisis in itself, and there is really a lot of concern.
Now was this Israel’s response to what the Israeli army said was Hezbollah’s attempt to kill a former high-ranking security official? Because just two hours ago, early this afternoon, the Israeli army said that they foiled an attack by Hezbollah using an explosive device to try to assassinate a high-ranking former security official.
Or is this a way, if you like, to prepare the ground for potential escalations? Because Israeli officials have been talking about the possibility of expanding the war.
