UN rights chief demands accountability for Lebanon pager blasts
Volker Turk says those responsible for the deadly wave of explosions across Lebanon targeting paging devices used by members of Hezbollah “must be held to account”.
“Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law,” the UN rights chief said in a statement.
Iranian president says Lebanon blasts should shame Israel’s allies
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says Western backers of Israel should feel “shame” after paging devices belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah exploded in a deadly attack on Tuesday, which the Tehran-aligned group blamed on Israel.
“Western countries and the Americans … fully support the crimes, killings and indiscriminate assassinations of the Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian said in a statement, referring to Israel.
Majority of injured have facial wounds: Doctor
Dr Salah Zeineldine, chief medical officer at the American University of Beirut (AUB) Medical Center, says the majority of those who were admitted to hospital following yesterday’s pager explosions had facial injuries to their eyes and nose, as well as injuries to the lower abdomen and their hands, mostly their fingers.
“Unfortunately with the hands, we had a lot of amputation of fingers, and with the eyes, we had lots of injuries which would leave permanent dysfunctional eyes or complete impairment,” Zeineldine told Al Jazeera.
He also said that it is common for medical staff to use pagers. “We [at AUB] use them for a limited number of personnel, who are [in] high demand, and the high stakes personnel who need to be activated urgently,” he said.
People gather as smoke rises from a mobile shop in Sidon
Exploding pagers harm civilians too: Human Rights Watch
According to the rights group’s Middle East and North Africa director, international law prohibits the use of booby traps precisely to avoid the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today.
A prompt and impartial investigation into the exploding pager attacks should be urgently conducted, Lama Fakih said in a statement.
“The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction,” Fakih said.
‘Civilian objects’ should not be weaponised: UN chief
Civilian objects should not be weaponised, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says in the wake of a deadly wave of explosions across Lebanon targeting devices used by Hezbollah.
“I think it’s very important that there is an effective control of civilian objects, not to weaponise civilian objects, that should be a rule that … governments should be able to implement,” Guterres said at a briefing at UN headquarters in New York.
“As important as the event in itself is the indication that this event confirms that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon and everything must be done to avoid the escalation,” Guterres said.
“What has happened is particularly serious not only because of the number of victims that it caused but because of the indications that exist that this was triggered, I would say, in advance of a normal way to trigger these things because there was a risk of this being discovered.”
