Hezbollah Walkie-Talkies Exploded Across Lebanon
Lebanon’s health ministry says nine dead and more than 300 injured. Israel’s Mossad has a long history of complex attacks. Walie-talkie used by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah exploded in southern Lebanon and on the outskirts of Beirut on Wednesday, a day after similar explosions in the group’s radios heightened tensions with Israel.
Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people had been killed and more than 300 injured, bringing the death toll from Tuesday’s blasts to 12, including two children, and nearly 3,000 injured.
On Wednesday, at least one explosion occurred near a funeral organized by Iran-backed Hezbollah for victims of the previous day, and thousands of communications equipment used by the group exploded across the country, injuring many militants.
A Reuters reporter in the southern suburbs of Beirut said he saw Hezbollah members frantically removing the batteries from any radio communications equipment that had not exploded and throwing the parts into metal barrels lying around.
The Lebanese Red Cross said on Channel X that it sent 30 ambulance teams to respond to multiple explosions in different areas of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
Hezbollah, briefly thrown into disarray by a communications attack, said on Wednesday it had hit Israeli artillery positions with rockets, its first attack on its arch-enemy since blasts injured thousands of Hezbollah members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider war in the east. Center.
Images of the exploded walkie-talkie examined by Reuters showed nameplates inside with the words “ICOM” and “Made in Japan.”
According to its website, ICOM is a wireless and telephone company based in Japan.
The company said several models of i.com handheld radios had been discontinued, including the Bad. In. No. 82, which appears to closely match the photos taken in Lebanon on Wednesday, had its production phased out in 2014.
There was no response to a Reuters request for comment on Wednesday. The equipment was purchased five months ago. A security source said Hezbollah bought the handheld radios five months ago, around the same time it bought the pagers.
The Israeli spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of carrying out complex operations on foreign soil, had placed explosives in pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s blast, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the blast.
Tuesday’s attack wounded several fighters of the militant group and Iran’s ambassador to Beirut.
Frontline workers described a hellish scene: Thousands of victims of small explosions linked to Hezbollah pagers were rushed to hospitals, some with blisters on their organs, others missing eyes or fingers. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for an independent investigation into the events surrounding the exploding pagers. The U.N.
Slovenia’s U.N. Ambassador Samuel Zbocjar, who was president of the 15-member council in September, said the Security Council will meet on Friday to discuss the pager blasts at Algeria’s request. Algeria represents Arab countries. Golden Apollo, a Taiwanese pager maker, denied making the pagers. She said the devices were made under license by a company called BAC, based in Budapest, Hungary.
Hungary said on Wednesday that the devices were never in the country and authorities had proven that BAC was a commercial intermediary with no manufacturing or operations in Hungary.
Revenge
Hezbollah has vowed revenge on Israel. The two countries have been engaged in a cross-border war since the Gaza conflict broke out in October last year, raising concerns about a wider war in the Middle East that could drag in the United States and Iran.
A full-scale war with Israel could devastate Lebanon, which has been mired in a crisis in recent years, including a financial collapse in 2019 and the Beirut port explosion in 2020.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of orchestrating a dangerous escalation on many fronts to push the Middle East to the brink of a regional war.
“Hezbollah still hopes to avoid all-out war, but given its scale and the impact it has on families and civilians, there will be pressure to respond more forcefully,” said Mohanad Haji Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, said in a statement that it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and that Israel should expect a response to the pager “massacre” that has left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalized or dead.
A Hezbollah official said the blast was the “biggest security breach” in the group’s history.
Multiple sources told Reuters the plot had been in preparation for months. There has been a series of assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas commanders and leaders blamed on Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
Hezbollah has used pagers and other low-tech communications devices to try to evade Israeli cellphone surveillance.
