Hezbollah hit by a wave of exploding pagers and blames Israel. At least 9 dead, thousands injured

BEIRUT -

Pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, killing at least nine people -- including an eight-year-old girl -- and wounding several thousand, officials said. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack.

Among those wounded was Iran's ambassador to Lebanon. The mysterious explosions came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.

• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

The pagers that blew up had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group's leader ordered members in February to stop using cellphones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence. A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the pagers were a new brand, but declined to say how long they had been in use.

At about 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, as people shopped for groceries, sat in cafes or drove cars and motorcycles in the afternoon traffic, the pagers in their hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding -- leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.

It appeared that many of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it was not immediately clear if others also carried the pagers.

The blasts were mainly in areas where the group has a strong presence, particularly a southern Beirut suburb and in the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

People gather outside the American University hospital after the arrival of several men who were wounded by exploded handheld pagers, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (Bassam Masri / AP Photo)

The Israeli military declined to comment. The explosions came hours after Israel’s internal security agency said it had foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to kill a former senior Israeli security official using a planted explosive device that could be remotely detonated.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States "was not aware of this incident in advance" and was not involved. "At this point, we're gathering information," he said.

Experts said the pager explosions pointed to a long-planned operation, possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the devices with explosives before they were delivered to Lebanon.

Whatever the means, it targeted an extraordinary breadth of people with hundreds of small explosions -- all at once, wherever the pager carrier happened to be -- that left some maimed.

One video circulating online showed a man picking through produce at a grocery store when the bag he was carrying at his hip explodes, sending him sprawling to the ground and bystanders running.

At overwhelmed hospitals, the wounded were rushed in on stretchers, some with missing hands, faces partly blown away or gaping holes at their hips and legs near the pocket area, according to AP photographers. On a main road in central Beirut, a car door was splattered with blood and the windshield cracked.

Lebanon's health minister, Firas Abiad, said to Qatar's Al Jazeera network at least nine people were killed, including an 8-year-old girl, and some 2,750 were wounded -- 200 of them critically -- by the explosions. Most had injuries in the face, hand, or around the abdomen.

It appeared eight of the dead belonged to Hezbollah. The group issued a statement confirming at least two members were killed in the pager bombings. One of them was the son of a Hezbollah member in parliament, according to the Hezbollah official who spoke anonymously. The group later issued announcements that six other members were killed Tuesday, though it did not specify how.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” Hezbollah said, adding that Israel will “for sure get its just punishment.”

Iranian state-run IRNA news agency said that the country's ambassador, Mojtaba Amani, was superficially wounded by an exploding pager and was being treated at a hospital.

Previously, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned the group's members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track their movements and carry out targeted strikes.

An injured person is transported to an ambulance following a wave of pager explosions in Lebanon on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024.

Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordnance disposal expert, said videos of the blasts suggested a small explosive charge — as small as a pencil eraser — had been placed into the devices. They would have had to have been rigged prior to delivery, very likely by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, he said.

Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based senior political risk analyst, said he spoke with Hezbollah members who had examined pagers that failed to explode. What triggered the blasts, he said, appeared to be an error message sent to all the devices that caused them to vibrate, forcing the user to click on the buttons to stop the vibration. The combination detonated a small amount of explosives hidden inside and ensured that the user was present when the blast went off, he said.

• 5 Things to Know newsletter: Get the biggest headlines in your inbox each morning

Israel has a long history of carrying out deadly operations well beyond its borders. This year, separate Israeli airstrikes in Beirut killed Saleh Arouri, a senior Hamas official, and a top Hezbollah commander. A mysterious explosion in Iran, also blamed on Israel, killed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ supreme leader.

Israel has killed Hamas militants in the past with booby-trapped cellphones and it's widely believed to have been behind the Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran's nuclear program in 2010.

The pager bombings also likely stoke Hezbollah's worries about vulnerabilities in its security and communications, as Israeli officials are threatening to escalate the monthslong conflict between the two sides. The near daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have killed hundreds in Lebanon and several dozen in Israel, and have displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.

On Tuesday, Israel said that halting Hezbollah's attacks in the north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal. Israeli Defense Minister Gallant said this week the focus of the conflict is shifting from Gaza to Israel's north and that time is running out for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah, saying "the trajectory is clear."

AP reporters Hussein Malla, Hassan Ammar, Fadi Tawil and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Michael Biesecker in Washington, and Josef Federman, in Jerusalem, contributed to this report.