A wave of pager explosions swept across Lebanon, from Beirut to the Bekaa Valley. The detonations were reported for about an hour. The intercoms of Hezbollah members exploded in their hands, pockets and bags. Eight people have been killed, including a child, and about 2,750 injured. Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attacks, promising “just retribution.” The Israeli government is calling an emergency meeting over Lebanon’s escalation.
At least eight people were killed and about 2,750, including Hezbollah members, medics and Iran's ambassador to Beirut, were wounded in massive explosions targeting pagers used by Hezbollah for communication, Lebanon's health ministry said.
Among the dead is a child. Several hundred people are in serious condition.
“These explosions, the causes of which are still unknown, resulted in the martyrdom of a girl and two brothers, as well as the wounding of a large number of people who sustained various injuries,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
As Reuters reports, citing emergency services, the pagers detonated in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, in the southern regions of the country, and in Damascus, Syria, where a Hezbollah delegation was at the time. The series of explosions continued for about an hour after the first detonations, which occurred at about 15:45 local time (the same as Moscow time).
A Hezbollah spokesman told Reuters that today's attack was the “biggest crime” the group had suffered in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
The explosions involved only the latest model of pagers that Hezbollah has begun using in recent months in an attempt to combat the vulnerability of smartphones to hacking, three security sources said.
Who suffered?
Lebanon's Crisis Operations Center, which is under the Ministry of Health, has called on all health workers to return to their jobs to treat the wounded arriving by ambulance.
The Lebanese Red Cross said more than 50 vehicles and 300 emergency medical personnel were deployed to hospitalize the injured.
~The son of a Hezbollah member was killed in an explosion right in the Lebanese parliament, Al Jazeera writes.~
Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was slightly injured, the Iranian Fars news agency reported.
“Amani has a superficial injury and is currently under observation in the hospital,” Fars quotes the source as saying.
A little later, the Iranian agency Irna, citing Amani's wife, confirmed that the diplomat had suffered minor injuries. He is fine and is currently in hospital under observation for treatment,” the diplomat's wife said.
The New York Times reported that two of the ambassador's bodyguards were also wounded.
Is Israel to Blame?
Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the pager bombings, promising “just retribution.”
“Having reviewed all the current facts, data and available information regarding the heinous attack that took place this afternoon, we hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also affected civilians and resulted in several deaths and numerous injuries,” the statement said.
“This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive its just retribution for this vile aggression,” Hezbollah representatives emphasized.
~The Israeli military has not yet commented on the information about the explosions.~
Lebanese information security expert Khalil Sehnaoui believes that malicious messages could have been sent to the pagers, which exploited vulnerabilities in the devices' software and caused the batteries to overheat.
“They basically sent the pagers an order via text message to cause them to overheat. When that happened, the battery exploded because the pagers do not have the protective measures that modern smartphones have, which turn off when they overheat,” Sehnaoui told RIA Novosti.
The expert noted that this option is the most likely. However, there is another possible scenario: devices from a certain batch were pre-hacked before being delivered to Lebanon to create a vulnerability that was subsequently activated by a certain message.
Sehnaoui recalled a number of incidents involving Samsung smartphones, in which the batteries of the devices suddenly exploded, as well as an SMS message that caused an iPhone to crash.
Leading analyst at Mobile Research Group Eldar Murtazin emphasizes that a pager is a cheap device that is easy to hack.
“Pagers are a cheap and old device, the so-called Low-tech. It is impossible to do the same with smartphones, because the batteries have several levels of protection and automatically turn off when overheated. That is, they are not controlled by the device itself, there is no point in hacking them. It is possible to do this with pagers, but the explosion there is not strong: the battery is 500-600 mAh,” Murtazin told Gazeta.Ru.
Reaction in the world
The events in Lebanon are extremely worrying, especially given the “highly volatile” situation in the region, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding that the organization regretted any civilian casualties.
“This development is extremely worrying, especially given the context of a situation that is extremely volatile. We certainly condemn the loss of civilian lives,” Dujarric said.
The explosions in Lebanon came hours after US Special Representative Amos Hochstein called on senior Israeli officials to prevent an escalation of the conflict with Hezbollah, warning of potentially catastrophic consequences, Haaretz reports.
Hochstein directly appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to advocate for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
Israel's top security officials were summoned today for urgent government talks over Hezbollah's escalating moves.
