Nine people have been killed and thousands have been seriously injured after pagers exploded in Lebanon, the country’s health minister has said.
Firas Abiad said 200 of the 2,750 wounded were in a critical condition.
In a statement, Hezbollah said three people had died in the explosions, including two fighters and one girl.
Lebanese information minister Ziad Makary laid the blame directly on “Israeli aggression”, while Hezbollah has promised to retaliate insisting Israel would receive “its fair punishment” for the blasts.
The Israeli military, which has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war, has refused to respond to questions about the detonations.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters news agency the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group has faced in nearly a year of war with Israel.
According to AP, a Hezbollah official said that at least 150 people, including members of the group, were wounded in different parts of Lebanon when the devices exploded.
Other reports have cited varying figures of how many are injured.
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Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also said to have been injured by the explosion of a pager according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.
How could the pagers explode?
There has been widespread speculation about what caused the pagers to explode. Experts broadly agree that the blasts do not look like a typical lithium battery fire.
Keren Elazari, a hacker and security researcher at Tel Aviv University, told Sky News: “There is no remote hacking capability that could generate that kind of kinetic explosion… some sort of a physical explosive component was probably part of the equation.”
What is Hezbollah?
Hezbollah is one of the most heavily armed non-state groups in the world and forms part of the government in Lebanon, with dozens of MPs in parliament.
It is deemed a terrorist organisation by many, including some Western governments, and has played a significant role in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, exchanging fire with Israel since last October in parallel with the war.
A Hezbollah official told AP that the pagers which exploded had apparently been deployed after the group’s leader ordered its members to stop using mobile phones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence.
Why are Hezbollah using pagers?
Many will ask why Hezbollah was using pagers in 2024.
The old-fashioned communication method was seemingly favoured by the group specifically for the fact it was not the latest technology.
Pagers were popular from the late 1980s to the 1990s and could display either a numeric or brief written message.
However, they were eventually replaced by affordable mobile phones.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry mobile phones because Israel could use them to track their movements.
On the other hand, pagers, in theory, pose no such problem.
Sky News Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall adds: “Hezbollah has been very cautious with its communications, aware that mobile phone conversations can be easily hacked and traced – pagers would have considered a lo-fi alternative and harder to infiltrate.”
Using older technologies has been a strategy of non-state groups to avoid electronic communication being intercepted by their more technologically advanced adversaries, J Andres Gannon, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University specialising in military armament, says.
He continued: “My suspicion is that pagers are part of the same strategy – by virtue of being an older technology, they’re harder to access because there are no satellites and radars in the same way as with more advanced forms of communication.
“What Israel has done here is send a very clear signal that they do have the ability to disrupt or access older forms of technology that are being used precisely to circumvent advanced cyber capabilities.”
A Reuters journalist saw ambulances rushing through the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital Beirut amid widespread panic.
They also reported that, at Mt Lebanon hospital, motorcycles raced to the emergency room carrying people with severely injured and bloodied hands.
Residents said explosions were taking place even 30 minutes after the initial blasts.
Large crowds were pictured outside hospitals as ambulances transported the injured.
Groups of people huddled at the entrance of buildings to check on the well-being of those they knew who may have been wounded, the Reuters journalist said.
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Hezbollah’s leader has accused Israel of carrying out “massacres” with pager and walkie-talkie explosions, saying it wanted to kill “5,000 people in two minutes”.
Lebanon has blamed Israel for the blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday which have killed 37 and injured thousands.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the “unprecedented” explosions “could be called a declaration of war” as he accused Israel of “violating red lines”.
He said 4,000 pagers carried by Hezbollah members exploded in hospitals, shops, cars and streets “where many civilians were” on Tuesday.
A thousand walkie-talkies exploded the following day.
During Nasrallah’s speech, in which he called the blasts an “unprecedented blow” and a “test” for Hezbollah, Israeli jets flew over the Lebanese capital Beirut, triggering sonic booms which shook buildings.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
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There’s raw anger and real fear on the streets of Lebanon after two days of multiple explosions involving communication devices.
Less than 24 hours after the country was plunged into a major emergency with more than a dozen killed and nearly three thousand casualties being admitted to 90 hospitals, there was panic and deaths again.
There were numerous explosions, this time involving two-way radios being used by primarily Hezbollah operatives, security and supporters.
Thousands had gathered in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, to attend funerals for four people killed during the pager explosions just one day earlier – among them a young boy.
But barely had the funerals begun and as mourners were just beginning to pay their condolences, we heard the sound of an explosion a short distance away followed by shouts and screams.
As we made our way to the site of the explosion, people were running in the opposite direction. We saw a crying mother holding on to her young child who was also sobbing, hurriedly trying to make their way out of the area.
A gaggle of men huddled together, one of them had blood smeared down his arm. An ambulance roared through the crowd to pick up the casualties, although as the funeral cortege continued undeterred, it was difficult to determine the numbers amid the mayhem.
We spotted members of Hezbollah, which is designated as a terror group by the UK and US, gathering handheld radios and taking them out of the area, their batteries removed.
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0:39
Fresh blasts heard at funeral for Hezbollah members
Much of our filming was curtailed by angry, aggressive men wearing all-black clothes who appeared to be Hezbollah officials or supporters, although none of them identified themselves.
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Many insisted we did not film what was happening in front of us by putting their hands in front of the camera lens and on one occasion attempting to snatch the mobile phone I was broadcasting on. As my colleague Chris Cunningham remonstrated with him, his mobile phone was taken and whisked away.
There is a lot of anxiety on display here and that is translating into red-rage anger.
‘Silence speaks volumes’
The Sky News team has been speaking to those close to the Hezbollah inner circle and there is both embarrassment and concern that the fighting group’s communications network has been so demonstrably compromised.
You won’t find many here who do not view Israel as responsible for these attacks.
The Israeli authorities have neither confirmed or denied their involvement but as my Sky colleague Alistair Bunkall put it: “The silence speaks volumes.”
Many within Hezbollah fear – much the same way as the UN secretary general has been speculating – that this widespread attack on the group’s communications may be a prelude to a more serious attack, even a ground invasion.
But doing the social media rounds are also plenty of theories that this may be Israel’s way of forcing Hezbollah to back down.
The atmosphere in Lebanon will not have been improved on hearing the Israeli prime minister, hours after the radio explosions, vow to return his citizens to their homes in north Israel.
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Israel declares ‘new phase’ of war
About 90,000 Israelis have been displaced from the area because of almost daily shelling by Hezbollah fighters along the disputed border.
Israel’s cross-border attacks into Lebanon have similarly displaced large numbers of Lebanese from its southern border – an estimated 120,000.
Israel’s defence minister will have also sent temperatures rising with his declaration they were entering a “new phase” of the war and were going to concentrate on the north, alongside Gaza and retrieving their hostages.
A mixture of fragments and blood stains
Where one of the two-way radios had exploded in the suburb of Dahiyeh, the street was a mixture of fragments and blood stains.
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A car bonnet had been left speckled with blood and we spotted blood smeared inside on the seats.
They appeared to be small explosions but by the end of the day, the death toll was still rising, outstripping those killed 24 hours earlier.
Along with the rising number of dead, there was a definite increase in fear and worry over the safety of any and every communications device.
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Lebanon: How did the blasts happen?
The UN Security Council will discuss the dramatic turn of events at a meeting this Friday.
But earlier on Wednesday, the Lebanese health minister Firass Abiad told us where he saw the blame.
“This is an act of aggression against non-combatants… you know, community people,” he said.
“Even if some of them [victims] are combatants, this is a non-discriminatory attack….and the use of this non-discriminatory force or attacks which, will clearly affect civilians, is in my mind against international law.”
Alex Crawford reports from Beirut with cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Lebanon team Jihad Jneid, Hwaida Saad and Sami Zein.
Lebanon has been rocked by a second wave of blasts, this time linked to hand-held radios, as reports have emerged that solar energy systems have exploded in several areas as well.
At least 20 people were killed in Wednesday’s blasts, with more than 450 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
The death toll from Tuesday’s explosions stands at 12, with nearly 3,000 injured.
Following the second wave of explosions, Israel’s defence minister declared a “new phase” of the war as its army turned its attention to the northern front with Lebanon.
Multiple reports have come in from Lebanon saying hand-held radios used by Hezbollah have exploded across the country’s south, and in the southern suburbs of the capital.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford witnessed the seeming aftermath of one of the explosions, at a funeral held in southern Beirut for four people killed in Tuesday’s pager blasts.
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While Wednesday’s explosions seemingly targeted Hezbollah members, it is not clear whether or not bystanders were caught in the blasts as well.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s official news agency reported that home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut, AP news agency said.
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Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, defence minister Yoav Gallant made no mention of the exploding electronic devices in Lebanon, but he praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies.
After months of war against Hamas in Gaza, “the centre of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces. We are at the start of a new phase in the war”, he said.
Many of the wounds suffered in Wednesday’s explosions were to the stomach and hands, it was reported.
This comes after nearly 3,000 people were injured and 12 were killed by pager explosions in Lebanon on Tuesday.
Two children were said to be among the dead, according to Lebanese health minister Firas Abiad.
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Hand-held radio exploded ‘because of battery’
The latest blasts come as Hezbollah alleged the pager explosions were part of a complex Israeli operation.
While the Iran-backed militant group and Hamas both claimed Israel was behind it, the country initially offered no comment.
Hezbollah security ‘taking batteries out of walkie-talkies’
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford was at a funeral in Beirut for four people killed in Tuesday’s attacks.
She said the area was in the southern suburbs of Beirut and she heard a “small sound of something popping”.
“We came out to try and find out what the sound was and people were running. People were covered in blood,” she said.
“There was blood on a car.
“One young man was running and he was very stressed. He said a walkie-talkie – which the Hezbollah security people around here are using for the funeral – exploded.
“The Hezbollah people then gathered up all the walkie-talkies and have been taking the batteries out of them.
“Our cameraman was surrounded by very tense and angry Hezbollah security, who told him to stop filming.
“The funeral is still going ahead.”
Crawford said there is an army presence there and “a lot of people are extremely tense”.
Hezbollah is “furious” and “there is a lot of anger from ordinary Lebanese civilians” too, Crawford added.
Experts told Sky News the pager devices would likely have had to have been intercepted and had explosives planted inside them to execute the apparent attack.
A Taiwanese pager maker denied it had produced the devices that exploded on Tuesday.
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Gold Apollo said the devices had been instead made under licence by a company called BAC, based in Budapest, Hungary.
But BAC chief executive Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono told Sky News’ US partner NBC News: “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong.”
Then, a spokesman for Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government said the pagers involved in Tuesday’s attack had never been in Hungary – but did not deny the firm’s alleged involvement.