At least 14 dead and 450 injured after walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah explode in second day of chaos in Lebanon

Comes a day after blasts from pagers used by militant groupTánaiste says attacks ‘demonstrate a blatant disregard for the lives of innocent civilians’

Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated today across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut suburbs, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the initial casualty toll was 14 killed and more than 450 injured. Earlier the state news agency said three people had died.

At least one of the blasts took place near a funeral organised by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country and wounded many of its fighters.

A Reuters reporter in the southern suburbs of Beirut said he saw Hezbollah members frantically taking out the batteries of any walkie-talkies on them that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels around them.

Lebanon’s Red Cross said on X that it was responding with 30 ambulance teams to multiple explosions in different areas.

The group, which was thrown briefly into disarray by the pager attacks, said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets, the first strike at its arch-foe since the blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East war.

The hand-held radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time that the pagers were bought, said a security source.

Israel’s spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of sophisticated operations on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin said of the attacks: “Over the last number of days there has been a dangerous and unacceptable escalation of violence in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon.

“Hezbollah has long been a malign actor in Lebanon and the region. But the indiscriminate attacks in Lebanon yesterday and today demonstrate a blatant disregard for the lives of innocent civilians. They are also in violation of international humanitarian law.

“They risk further escalation in an already tense situation, and increase the risk of a wider conflict in the region. This would be disastrous for everyone.

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“I call for calm and restraint, and for de-escalation on all sides. It is time for the killing and the bombardment in the Middle East to stop.

“We need to see renewed efforts to reach agreement in mediation efforts led by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal. I urge Hamas and Israel to engage positively and flexibly in this process. We also need to see humanitarian access to Gaza at scale,” Mr Martin said.

I remain convinced that implementation of the two-State solution is the only way to establish lasting peace and security for both Israel and Palestine.

The death toll from Tuesday’s blasts involving pagers rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said today.

Tuesday’s attack wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the militant group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.

Frontline workers described hellish scenes: victims of thousands of small explosions linked to pagers used by militant group Hezbollah rushed into hospitals, some with organs protruding, others with faces missing eyes or hands missing fingers.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for an independent investigation into the events surrounding exploding pagers.

A Taiwanese pager maker denied that it had produced the pager devices.

Gold Apollo said the devices were made under licence by a company called BAC, based in Hungary’s capital Budapest.

Retaliation

There was no immediate word on when Hezbollah had launched its latest rocket attack but normally the group announces such strikes shortly after carrying them out, suggesting it fired at the Israeli artillery positions today.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military declined to comment on the blasts. The two sides have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, fuelling fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could drag in the United States and Iran.

A full-blown war with Israel could devastate Lebanon, which has lurched from one crisis to another in recent years, including a 2019 financial collapse and the 2020 Beirut port blast.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of pushing the Middle East to the brink of a regional war by orchestrating a dangerous escalation on many fronts.

“Hezbollah wants to avoid an all-out war. It still wants to avoid one. But given the scale, the impact on families, on civilians, there will be pressure for a stronger response,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

Hezbollah said in a statement it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and Israel should await a response to the pager “massacre” which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or dead.

One Hezbollah official said the detonation was the group’s “biggest security breach” in its history.

The plot appears to have been many months in the making, several sources told Reuters.

It followed a series of assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas commanders and leaders blamed on Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

IrishIndependent