Medical staff, children among those killed in pager blasts: Health Ministry
Lebanon’s Minister of Health Firass Abiad has held a media conference in Beirut on the situation in the aftermath of the pager blasts.
Abiad said many of those carrying the pagers were civilians. At least 12 people have been killed, including four medical staff, an eight-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy.
The attack showed that Israel was “steering away from a diplomatic solution,” Abiad said. “We have to be ready and alert.” The minister said the biggest challenge was to bring medical sector to a “situation of preparedness”, which includes increasing stockpiles of medicines and fuel.
Hospitals also needed to recover from the massive influx of patients overnight. Abiad said each hospital received 70 to 100 patients in the aftermath of the attack, which was “massive for any country”.
‘The people are strong and fear is the furthest thing from our minds’
Like many hospitals in Beirut after yesterday’s pager attack, the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) is overcrowded, with people constantly filing in and out, according to Al Jazeera’s Justin Salhani in the Lebanese capital.
Salhani said women can be seen crying while young people pass out juice and water to people in queues to donate blood. “AUBMC have enough blood for today. [They] said the entire community came to donate,” said Salhani.
One man seated on a kerb outside the hospital’s main door, Ali, with a cut on his left leg from a prior motorcycle accident, told Al Jazeera he was waiting for someone he knew who had been hurt in the explosions.
The 40-year-old was in Beirut’s neighbourhood of Dahiyeh when the attack occurred, and heard staggered explosions, each a few seconds apart. Ali called yesterday’s attack “stupid”. Still, he said “the people are strong and fear is the furthest thing from our minds”.
The American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), after Tuesday’s pager attack
Lebanon’s UN envoy denounces pager attacks as a ‘war crime’
Hadi Hachem said Israel’s alleged detonation of pagers in Lebanon and Syria amounted to “aggression which rises to a war crime”, as he accused the country of escalating regional tensions.
Speaking at an emergency session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), discussing the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory on Tuesday, Lebanon’s ambassador to the UN warned that the attack would exacerbate the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hachem also accused Israel of defying international law and undermining the country’s sovereignty with repeated attacks on southern Lebanon since October.
At least nine people were killed, including at least one child, while some 2,750 others were injured, as pagers used by Hezbollah members simultaneously exploded in locations across Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday.
Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the attack. Israel is yet to comment.
Israel planted explosives in 5,000 Hezbollah pagers: Report
The Reuters news agency, citing informed sources, is reporting that Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah before the detonations on Tuesday.
The sources told Reuters that the plot appears to have been many months in the making. The beepers were brought into the country earlier this year. Reuters quoted a senior Lebanese source as saying that the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service “at the production level”.
“The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner,” the source said.
They added that 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
Another security source told Reuters that up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the new pagers and had gone “undetected” by Hezbollah for months.
Pager explosion in Lebanon ‘requires investigation’: Russia
The mass detonation of pagers in Lebanon requires investigation and international attention to the topic, Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a post on Telegram.
Pager attack sought to ‘provoke a major war in the Middle East’: Russia
“We regard what happened as yet another act of hybrid warfare against Lebanon, which has harmed thousands of innocent people,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
“It appears that the organisers of this high-tech attack deliberately sought to foment a large-scale armed confrontation in order to provoke a major war in the Middle East.”
Erdogan conveys sadness over pager attack in call with Lebanese PM: Report
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed sadness over the deadly pager blasts in Lebanon in a phone call with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Turkey’s state Anadolu news agency reported.
Erdogan also told Mikati that Israel’s attempts to escalate its war on Gaza to the wider region was dangerous and that efforts to stop Israel would continue, the agency said.
Belgium’s deputy PM denounces ‘terror attack’ in Lebanon and Syria
“I strongly condemn the massive terror attack in Lebanon and Syria, which injured thousands of people. A brutal escalation of violence,” Petra De Sutter said in a post on X.
“Silence is not an option. An international investigation is called for. The bloodshed must end,” she said.
I strongly condemn the massive terror attack in Lebanon and Syria, which injured thousands of people. A brutal escalation of violence.
Silence is not an option. An international investigation is called for. The bloodshed must end.
— Petra De Sutter (@pdsutter) September 18, 2024
Iran accuses Israel of ‘mass murder’ after pager explosions
Iran has accused Israel of “mass murder” after paging devices belonging to the Hezbollah group in Lebanon exploded, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani “condemned the terrorist act of the Zionist regime … as an example of mass murder”.
EU foreign affairs chief decries civilian casualties in Lebanon pager attacks
“Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians, including children among the victims,” Josep Borrell said.
“I consider this situation extremely worrying. I can only condemn these attacks that endanger the security and stability of Lebanon, and increase the risk of escalation in the region,” he added.
He said that the European Union wants to avert an all-out war because it would have “heavy consequences for the entire region and beyond”.
