Militant group Hezbollah promised to retaliate against Israel after accusing it of detonating pagers across Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding nearly 3000 others who included fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut.
A senior Lebanese security source and another source said Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before the detonations.
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.
Hezbollah said in a statement that "the resistance will continue today, like any other day, its operations to support Gaza, its people and its resistance which is a separate path from the harsh punishment that the criminal enemy (Israel) should await in response to Tuesday's massacre".
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.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said that eight people were killed and 2750 wounded in the pager explosions, 200 of them critically.
Hezbollah in an earlier statement confirmed the deaths included at least two of its fighters.
No US involvement in Lebanon pager blasts says Pentagon spokesman. – Reuters
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 detonation of the pagers 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.
Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the Taipei-based firm's brand, the name of which he could not immediately confirm.
"The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it," he said.
Ching-Kuang did not name the company that did make the devices.
The senior Lebanese security source identified a photograph of the model of the pager, an AP924, which like other pagers wirelessly receive and display text messages but cannot make telephone calls.
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.
But the senior Lebanese source said the devices had been modified by Israel's spy service "at the production level."
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".
The US State Department said it was too early to say how the pager attacks in Lebanon might impact efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.
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 US influence – not to take advantage of any incident to raise instability.
'It's our brain against their muscles' Israelis react to pager blasts. – Reuters
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 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 the belief they could evade Israeli location tracking, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters earlier 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 the 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.
US believes Israel-Hezbollah conflict requires a diplomatic solution. – Reuters
"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.
Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed cited Ammar as promising consequences. "We will deal with the enemy in the language it understands," he added.
Tuesday's blasts added to a hefty price paid over the past year by Hezbollah. The group has lost more than 400 fighters in Israeli strikes, including its top commander Fuad Shukr in July. Security sources in Lebanon said two more Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, 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 member of the Lebanese parliament, Ali Ammar, accepts condolences for his son who was killed in the detonation of pagers in Beirut. – Reuters
The Shin Bet agency, which did not name the official, said in a statement it had seized an explosive device attached to a remote detonation system, using a mobile phone and a camera that Hezbollah had planned to operate from Lebanon.
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.
Screaming in pain
After Tuesday's blasts, a Reuters journalist saw ambulances rushing through the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, amid widespread panic. A security source said that devices were also exploding in the south of Lebanon.
At Mt. Lebanon hospital, a Reuters reporter saw motorcycles rushing to the emergency room, where people with their hands bloodied were screaming in pain.
EU's Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell: 'Risk of spillover has always been there'. – Reuters
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.
Groups of people huddled at the entrance of buildings to check on people they knew who may have been wounded, the Reuters journalist said.
Regional broadcasters carrying CCTV footage showed what appeared to be a small handheld device placed next to a grocery store cashier where an individual was paying spontaneously exploding.
In other footage, an explosion appeared to knock out someone standing at a fruit stand at a market area.
Lebanon’s crisis operations centre, which is run by the health ministry, asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of wounded coming in for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.
People donate blood in Lebanon's Sidon for those wounded by pager blasts. – Reuters
The Lebanese Red Cross said more than 50 ambulances and 300 emergency medical staff were dispatched to help in the evacuation of victims.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel immediately after the October 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire constantly ever since, while avoiding a major escalation.
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 the safe return of its citizens forced to leave their homes near the border with Lebanon to its formal war goals.
What is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group hit by exploding pagers?
Following are facts about the Lebanese-based group Hezbollah, some of whose fighters and medics were wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, security sources told Reuters.
What are Hezbollah's origins?
Iran's Revolutionary Guards founded Hezbollah in 1982 during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, part of Tehran's effort to export its 1979 Islamic Revolution and fight Israeli forces that had invaded Lebanon in 1982.
The group has risen from a shadowy faction to a heavily armed force with big sway in Lebanon and the region. Western governments including the United States designate it a terrorist group. So do Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia.
Hezbollah is a Shi'ite Islamist group and shares the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
How did Hezbollah get involved in the Gaza war?
Hezbollah is a powerful part of the "Axis of Resistance", an alliance of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that also includes the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which ignited the Gaza war by attacking Israel on October 7.
Declaring solidarity with the Palestinians, Hezbollah began firing on Israeli positions in the frontier region on October 8.
The sides have been trading fire on a near daily basis since then, with Hezbollah launching rockets and drones and Israel mounting air and artillery strikes. The attacks have mostly struck near or at the frontier, but both sides have also widened their attacks.
Tens of thousands have been uprooted in Lebanon and Israel.
How powerful is Hezbollah's military?
While other groups disarmed after Lebanon's civil war, Hezbollah kept its weapons to fight Israeli forces that were occupying the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim south of the country. Years of guerrilla warfare led Israel to withdraw in 2000, but Hezbollah retained its arsenal.
Hezbollah demonstrated military advances in 2006 during a five-week war with Israel, which erupted after it crossed into Israel, kidnapping two soldiers and killing others.
Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel during the conflict, in which 1200 people were killed in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis were killed, most of them soldiers.
Hezbollah's military power grew after 2006. The group says its rockets can strike all parts of Israel and its arsenal includes precision missiles.
During the Gaza war, Hezbollah has announced attacks using surface-to-air missiles – a weapon it was long believed to have in its arsenal but had never before confirmed possessing. It has also launched explosive drones at Israel.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said the group has 100,000 fighters. The US Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook says Hezbollah was estimated in 2022 to have 45,000 fighters, split between roughly 20,000 full-time and 25,000 reservists.
What regional sway does Hezbollah have?
Hezbollah has inspired and supported other Iranian-backed groups across the region, including Iraqi Shi'ite militias. It played a big part in helping its ally President Bashar al-Assad fight the war in Syria, where it still has fighters.
Saudi Arabia says Hezbollah has also fought in support of the Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen. Hezbollah denies this.
What is Hezbollah's role in Lebanon?
Hezbollah's influence is underpinned by both its weaponry and the support of many Lebanese Shi'ites who say the group defends Lebanon from Israel. It has ministers in government and lawmakers in parliament.
Lebanese parties opposed to Hezbollah say the group has undermined the state and unilaterally dragged Lebanon into wars.
It entered Lebanese politics in 1992, contesting elections, and began taking a more prominent role in state affairs in 2005 after Syria withdrew forces from Lebanon following the killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni politician who symbolised Saudi influence in Beirut.
A UN-backed court convicted three Hezbollah members in absentia over the assassination. Hezbollah denies any role, describing the court as a tool of its enemies.
In 2008, a power struggle between Hezbollah and its Lebanese political foes led to armed conflict, after the government vowed to take action against the group's military communications network. Hezbollah fighters took over parts of Beirut.
In 2018, Hezbollah and allies who support its possession of arms won a parliamentary majority. This was lost in 2022, but the group still has major political sway.
Accused of attacks on Western interests
Lebanese officials and Western intelligence have said groups linked to Hezbollah carried out suicide attacks on Western embassies and targets, and kidnapped Westerners in the 1980s.
The United States holds Hezbollah responsible for suicide bombings in 1983 that destroyed the US Marine headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 servicemen, and a French barracks, killing 58 French paratroopers. It also says Hezbollah was behind a suicide attack on the US embassy in Beirut in 1983.
Referring to those attacks and hostage-taking, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a 2022 interview that they were carried out by small groups not linked to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has also been accused of militant attacks elsewhere. Argentina blames it and Iran for the deadly bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people died in 1994 and for an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 that killed 29 people.
Both Hezbollah and Iran deny any responsibility.