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Almost 3,000 Hezbollah members and paramedics have been injured after the pagers they use to communicate exploded simultaneously.
Videos showed members of the Lebanese terror group lying wounded on the street as Beirut hospitals filled up with people injured in the attack.
Hezbollah said that two of its fighters were killed. An MP’s son and one girl is also among some eight confirmed to have died so far.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the affected pagers were delivered in recent days. A Lebanese minister blamed “Israeli aggression” for the explosions.
One security expert told the Telegraph the attacks appeared to have used “an old fashioned explosive booby trap”.
It comes as Israel has been warning that it is getting closer to a possible war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, the defence minsiter, have been taking part in discussions over how Israel should respond to a potential escalation by Hezbollah after the pager attack.
Hewbrew media reported that top defence officials have been summoned for an emergency discussion with government officials at the defence ministry’s HQ at the Kirya base, Tel Aviv.
Firas al-Abyad, Lebanon’s health minister, said that eight people were killed and nearly 2,800 were injured in today’s exploding pager attack.
At least 200 people are thought to be in critical conditions.
Hezbollah has issued a statement saying it is conducting a “wide-ranging security and scientific investigation to determine the causes that led to these simultaneous explosions.”
“We affirm that the resistance, at all its levels and various units, is at the highest level of readiness to defend Lebanon and its steadfast people,” a spokesperson for Hezbollah added.
At least three people were killed and almost 3,000 were injured in the attack.
The group reported that the blasts “resulted in the martyrdom of a girl and two brothers while injuring a large number of people with varying degrees of severity.”
The affected pagers were from a new shipment that Hezbollah received in the last few days, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A Hezbollah official said hundreds of fighters had the devices and speculated that malware may have caused the devices to explode.
Some people with the pagers felt them heat up and got rid of them before they exploded.
Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, and two of his bodyguards were injured when a pager exploded in Lebanon.
“Mojtaba Amani, the honourable ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran, sustained a minor injury,” the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Beirut said.
“Fortunately, the ambassador’s overall condition is good,” the embassy added.
Mr Amani’s wife said, “My husband, Dr Mojtaba Amani, sustained minor injuries in a pager explosion in Lebanon.”
“Thank God, he is doing well now, and we are grateful that nothing happened to him.”
Professor Alan Woodward, a cyber security expert at the University of Surrey, told the Telegraph:
A tiny amount of explosive can injure badly especially when right next to the body. If this proves to be real I don’t think it’s a cyber attack, but rather an old fashioned explosive booby trap.
The first obvious question is what pagers are they using as there’s not many places left with pagers in use.
I’m guessing to make it explode, you’d have to get the battery to misbehave in some way.
I’ve heard of lithium ion batteries spontaneously igniting but to make it happen on demand is a different matter entirely.
This is the moment a pager exploded in a man’s bag as he shopped for fruit in a Beirut supermarket.
A small explosion can be seen taking place inside the bag, which dropped him to the floor as bystanders looked on, confused.
More than 1,000 people are believed to have been injured, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, after the pagers exploded across Beirut.
Video footage showed one man’s device appearing to explode while he shopped in a supermarket while bleeding men were seen lying on the streets in the city of Baalbek.
Explosions also occurred in the Dahiya neighbourhood in Beirut, a Hezbollah’s stronghold where a top Hezbollah commander was assassinated by Israel in July.
Other footage showed ambulances rushing to the scene of an explosion in Beirut and hospitals treating dozens of bleeding men.
Good afternoon and welcome to our live coverage.
We’re bringing you the latest after hundreds of Hezbollah fighters were injured by exploding pagers in Beirut, Lebanon.