Hezbollah vows to punish Israel after pager blasts kill nine, injure thousands across Lebanon
Hezbollah calls it biggest security breach in war with Israel
Hezbollah fighters are among those killed, the group says
Pagers used to try to avoid Israeli tracking
No comment from Israeli military or government
Air France cancels flights to Beirut, Tel Aviv
UN says developments are very concerning
Adds report that Israel hid explosive material in pagers in paragraph 9
By Laila Bassam
BEIRUT, Sept 17 (Reuters) -Militant group Hezbollah promised to retaliate against Israel after accusing it of detonating pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others who included fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut.
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the late-afternoon detonation of the pagers - handheld devices that Hezbollah and others in Lebanon use to send messages - as an "Israeli aggression". Hezbollah said Israel would receive "its fair punishment" for the blasts.
The Israeli military, which has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war in October, declined to respond to questions about the detonations.
The death toll rose from eight to nine on Tuesday night while the number of injured remained at 2,750, Lebanon's health ministry said.
Hezbollah confirmed in an earlier statement that the deaths included at least two of its fighters and a young girl.
The pagers exploded in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh and the eastern Bekaa Valley - all Hezbollah strongholds.
In one instance, closed-circuit surveillance video carried by regional broadcasters showed a person paying at a grocery store as what appeared to be a small handheld device placed next to the cashier exploded.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident was the "biggest security breach" for the group in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosive material in the Taiwan-made Gold Apollo pagers before they were imported to Lebanon, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation. The material was implanted next to the battery with a switch that could be triggered remotely to detonate.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is waging war with Israel in Gaza, said the pager blasts were an "escalation" that will only lead Israel to "failure and defeat".
UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert deplored the attack in a statement and said it “marked an extremely concerning escalation” in the conflict.
Washington said it was not involved in the explosions and did not know who was responsible. The U.S. renewed calls for a diplomatic solution to tensions between Israel and Lebanon.
It urged Iran - which with its allies Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and armed groups in Iraq has formed an "Axis of Resistance" against Israeli and U.S. influence - not to take advantage of any incident to raise instability.
Without commenting directly on the explosions in Lebanon, an Israeli military spokesman said the chief of staff, Major General Herzi Halevi, met with senior officers on Tuesday evening to assess the situation. No policy change was announced but "vigilance must continue to be maintained", he said.
Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters this year. A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays messages.
MANY INJURED
Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, suffered a "superficial injury" in Tuesday's pager blasts and was under observation in hospital, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
The casualties included Hezbollah fighters who are the sons of top officials from the armed group, two security sources told Reuters. One of those killed was the son of a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, Ali Ammar, they said.
"This is not a security targeting of one, two or three people. This is a targeting of an entire nation," senior Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil said while paying his condolences for Ammar's son.
Air France announced late on Tuesday it was suspending flights connecting Paris with Beirut and Tel Aviv through Thursday due to security concerns.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel's domestic security agency said it had foiled a plot by Hezbollah to assassinate a former senior defence official in the coming days.
Hezbollah has said it wants to avoid all-out conflict with Israel but that only an end to the Gaza war will stop the cross-border clashes. Gaza ceasefire efforts remain deadlocked after months of talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
While they saw a threat of escalation, experts were more skeptical, for now, about the potential for an imminent full-scale Israel-Hezbollah war, which the U.S. has sought to prevent and which it believes neither side wants.
SCREAMING IN PAIN
After Tuesday's blasts, ambulances rushed through the southern suburbs of Beirut amid widespread panic.
At Mount Lebanon Hospital outside Beirut, a Reuters reporter saw motorcycles rushing to the emergency room and people with bloodied hands 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.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire ever since, while avoiding a major escalation.
Hezbollah has lost more than 400 fighters in Israeli strikes over the past year, including its top commander Fuad Shukr in July.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from towns and villages on both sides of the border by the hostilities.
On Tuesday, Israel added to its formal war goals the return of citizens to their homes near the border with Lebanon.
FACTBOX-What weapons does Lebanon's Hezbollah have? nL1N3KZ0MQ
FACTBOX-What is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group hit by exploding pagers? nL1N3KZ0LA
How Hezbollah is trying to counter Israel's high-tech surveillance https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-hezbollah-aims-counter-israels-high-tech-surveillance-2024-07-09/
Reporting by Laila Bassam, Maya Gebeily, Emilie Madi and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Nadine Awadalla, Clauda Tanios, Michael Georgy and Cynthia Osterman; Editing by Gareth Jones, Rod Nickel and Stephen Coates
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
