Hundreds wounded after pagers explode in Lebanon

Hundreds of people have been wounded in Lebanon after pagers used by the group exploded, Health Minister Firass Abiad has confirmed.

Mojtaba Amani, Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, was wounded by a pager explosion.

Footage shared on social media from Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, showed severely wounded and bloodied men being attended to by passers by.

Footage from shops also show pager devices exploding in the pockets and bags of men, as nearby shoppers flee from the scene.

The affected pagers were from a new shipment that Hezbollah had received in recent days, according to sources familiar with the matter cited by the Wall Street Journal.

A Hezbollah official told the WSJ that hundreds of fighters had such devices, and speculated that malware may have caused the pagers to heat up and explode. Some people felt the pagers heat up and threw them away before they detonated, the official added.

A Hezbollah official told Reuters the detonations were the “biggest security breach” since war with Israel broke out a year ago.

Footage from a hospital in Beirut showed chaotic scenes, with severely wounded people laying on the floor and on hospital beds.

Hezbollah urged people to be “cautious of rumours and false, misleading information being circulated by certain parties”, which it said “serve the psychological warfare of the Zionist enemy”.

“This comes especially in light of the enemy’s threatening rhetoric about changing the situation in the north,” it added.

“We affirm that the resistance, at all levels and across all its units, is fully prepared to defend Lebanon and its resilient people.”