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Pagers belonging to Hizbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, the militant group said, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 2,700 in an apparent sabotage of the low-tech systems it uses to evade Israeli surveillance and assassination attempts.
The blasts took place in several areas of Lebanon including the capital Beirut, the southern city of Tyre and the western area of Hermel. Images circulated on social media of explosions and of people with bloodied pocket areas, ears or faces being taken to hospital.
Hizbollah said that “at around 3.30pm . . . many messaging devices known as pagers belonging to many of those working in the different Hizbollah units and institutions exploded”. A spokesperson for Lebanon’s health ministry said eight people including a child had been killed in the blasts and at least 2,750 people were injured, 200 of them seriously.
Hizbollah added in a statement that it held Israel “fully responsible for this criminal attack”.
Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, was injured by one of the explosions, an Iranian official told the Financial Times, adding that “his overall condition is good”. The official said no other members of the diplomatic team from Iran, which backs Hizbollah, were harmed.
Hizbollah said its “specialised agencies are conducting a widescale security and scientific investigation to determine the reasons that led to these simultaneous explosions. Medical and health services are also treating the wounded in multiple hospitals in different Lebanese regions.”
It also warned people to be “aware of rumours and false” information that it said could serve Israel’s “psychological warfare”.
Israel, which has been locked in 10 months of intensifying cross-border clashes with Hizbollah, did not immediately comment on the blasts.
The health ministry issued an urgent call to its healthcare workers, telling them to go to their workplaces and to stay away from their electronic devices.
Hizbollah has turned to low-tech communications as Israel increased assassinations of its senior commanders after the arch-foes began trading cross-border fire following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Over the past 10 months, Israeli strikes have killed about 470 people in Lebanon, mostly Hizbollah fighters, while the militant group’s attacks on Israel have killed more than 40 people.
This year Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s leader, implored his fighters to jettison their smartphones, prompting many to switch to older technologies such as pagers, landlines and human couriers.
That did not prevent the assassination of senior Hizbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli air strike in July in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the militant group’s stronghold.
Tuesday’s explosions in Lebanon followed what Israel said had been a foiled assassination attempt by Hizbollah on a former senior official in Israel’s security establishment.
Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, said the “planned Hizbollah bombing attack” had “intended to target a former senior official in Israel’s security establishment . . . in the coming days”.
“As part of the operation, the ISA uncovered a Claymore explosive device . . . intended to target a high-profile individual,” it added. “The device was equipped with a remote activation mechanism, with a camera and cellular technology, enabling it to be activated by Hizbollah from Lebanon.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet earlier on Tuesday expanded the objectives of Israel’s almost year-long campaign against Hamas in Gaza to include securing the northern front against Hizbollah.
It voted to add “returning the residents of the north securely to their homes”, in reference to more than 60,000 Israelis who have been displaced by the clashes on the Israeli-Lebanese border. The fighting has also forced about 100,000 Lebanese from their homes in the border region.
The security cabinet’s decision was viewed by analysts as a statement of intent, marking a shift in priorities for the Israel Defense Forces and raising fears that the clashes between Hizbollah and Israel could spiral into a full-scale war.
Additional reporting by Andrew England in London