BEIRUT (Reuters): Several people were killed and more than 1,000 injured, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, security sources said.
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.
Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, the worst such escalation in years.
The Israeli military declined to comment about the detonations.
Iran’s Mehr news agency said the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured by one of the blasts.
The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources said.
A journalist saw ambulances rushing through the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, amid widespread panic. A security source said that devices were also exploding in the south of Lebanon.
At Mt. Lebanon hospital, a reporter saw motorcycles rushing to the emergency room, where people with their hands bloodied were screaming in pain.
The head of the Nabatieh public hospital in the south of the country, Hassan Wazni, told Reuters that around 40 wounded people were being treated at his facility. The wounds included injuries to the face, eyes and limbs.
The wave of explosions lasted around an hour after the initial detonations, which took place about 3:45 p.m. local time (1345 GMT). It was not immediately clear how the devices were detonated.
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