Hezbollah Vows Retaliation Against Isreal After Attack That Kills Nine, Injures 2,800
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel after pagers used by its members exploded across Lebanon simultaneously, killing at least nine people and wounding 2,800.
Hezbollah said two of its fighters were among the dead and threatened a “just punishment” for Israel. Later media reports said the son of the Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar also died in the explosions.
Israel is now being blamed for the fatal attack, with reports suggesting the devices belonged to members of Hezbollah were modified “at a production level”.
A senior security source in Lebanon has now told Reuters that Israel’s Mossad spy agency were responsible for the attack, planting a small amount of explosives inside thousands of pagers during production.
The Israeli military has yet to comment.
The militant group had ordered 5,000 beepers “made in Europe” under a new licence from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, several sources told Reuters.
The blast which occurred on Tuesday, according to Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, killed a 10-year-old girl, among others.
He told a press conference: “About 2,750 people were injured … more than 200 of them critically,” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands and stomach.
It would be recalled that thousands of communication beepers used by Hezbollah fighters, on Tuesday, exploded simultaneously, causing the death and injuries.
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The devices are used by Hezbollah fighters to avoid detection by regular phone networks. Most of the victims are members of the group.
The attack comes amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters.
At Beirut’s Geitaoui University Hospital, ambulances rushed in one after another, RFI’s Sophie Guignon reported.
Naji Abi Rached, the hospital’s medical director, said: “We’ve received critical cases since the explosions. The hospital is full, operating rooms are overwhelmed, and the emergency unit is overloaded with critically injured patients.”
