three technical strikes have been reported in Lebanon in the last 3 days. First there were serial blasts in the pagers used by Hezbollah fighters. After that blasts were also reported in walkie talkies that were used for communication.
At least 14 people were killed and more than 450 injured after hand-held radios (walkie-talkies) used by Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah detonated late on Wednesday afternoon across the country's south and in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, a security source and a witness said.
After thousands of pagers across Lebanon exploded on Tuesday and killed 12 people, the country was rocked again when walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday. The incident has further stoked tensions between Israel and Hezbollah and raised the risks of an all-out war.
Hundreds of people were wounded in fresh blasts involving communication devices used by Lebanon's Hezbollah group, a security source said. Many of the wounds were to the stomach and hands, the source said.
The walkie-talkies which went off on Wednesday were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time that the pagers were bought. Images of the exploded walkie-talkies showed an inside panel labelled "ICOM" and "made in Japan."
Multiple explosions occurred Wednesday at the site of a funeral for three Hezbollah members and a child killed by exploding pagers the day before. Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV reported explosions in multiple areas of Lebanon, which it said were the result of walkie-talkies detonating.
Health Minister Firas Abiad said that two-thirds of the wounded needed hospitalization, adding that the scale of the incident was far greater than the thousands wounded in the massive Beirut Port explosion in 2020.
Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Wednesday it attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets in the first cross-border attack since the Tuesday pager blasts.
The United States had no involvement in Tuesday's (September 17) pager blasts in Lebanon that killed at least eight people and wounded nearly 3,000, the Pentagon said, as Washington renewed calls for a diplomatic solution to tensions between Israel and Lebanon.
Lebanon Pager Blasts: Thousands of pagers exploded across Lebanon on 17 September, killing nine people and injuring nearly 3,000 members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, including fighters and medics, and Iran's envoy to Beirut. But what is a pager and how Israel managed to plant
Around 3,000 of the pagers used in Lebanon exploded when Israel reportedly sent a "cryptic message", killing nine people and wounding thousands. This could be one of the most advanced warfare against Hezbollah, which has sworn punishment against Israel.
The long-forgotten communication device has recently resurfaced in the spotlight following a series of explosions that injured over a thousand people in Lebanon.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the "biggest security breach" the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
Hezbollah is a powerful part of the "Axis of Resistance", an alliance of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that also includes the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which ignited the Gaza war by attacking Israel on October 7.
Thousand of people were wounded in Beirut’s suburbs and other parts of Lebanon after their handheld pagers exploded Tuesday, Lebanese state media and security officials said.
The explosions took place amid heightened violence between Israel and Hezbollah, who have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza war erupted last October in the worst such escalation in years.
Cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah have increased recently, as the Lebanese militant group launched over 200 projectiles towards Israel on Tuesday. Israel said it is winding down its operations in Gaza to focus on Lebanon.
Israel's military said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot used by Hezbollah militants amid heightened tensions following the death of a senior militant commander last month. Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire since October 8, a day after Hamas attacked the Jewish country.
Last week, Israel killed Shukr, Hezbollah's senior-most military commander, in a strike on the group's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut. Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, vowed revenge, but said the response would be "studied."
Last week, Israel killed Shukr, Hezbollah's senior-most military commander, in a strike on the group's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut.
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