Hezbollah will continue operations in ‘support of Gaza’
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said early on Wednesday that it “will continue, as in all the past days, its blessed operations to support Gaza”, after a deadly wave of exploding pagers killed nine and injured thousands.
“This path is ongoing and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday,” the group said in a statement issued on Telegram.
Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, with the group pinning the blame for the blasts on Israel.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the wave of explosions, which came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s 7 October attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah along the country’s border with Lebanon.
Key events
Major airlines Lufthansa and Air France have announced suspensions of flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran and Beirut until Thursday as tensions in the region soared after pager explosions in Lebanon.
German group Lufthansa said it was suspending all flights to Tel Aviv and Iran’s capital Tehran while French airline Air France suspended flights to the Israeli city and the Lebanese capital Beirut.
“Due to the recent change in the security situation, the Lufthansa Group airlines have decided to suspend all connections to and from Tel Aviv (TLV) and Tehran (IKA) with immediate effect,” Lufthansa said in a statement.
“This applies up to and including 19 September,” it said.
“Due to the security situation at the destinations, Air France is suspending its connections from Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Beirut (Lebanon) and … Tel Aviv (Israel) until 19 September inclusive,” the French company said in statement sent to AFP.
Air France said it would “evaluate daily the situation” in the Middle East and insisted that “the safety of our customers and crews is the absolute priority”.
Antony Blinken arrives in Egypt
US secretary of state Antony Blinken reportedly landed in Cairo early Wednesday, as part of a planned trip to the region to attempt to secure an elusive ceasefire in Gaza.
On his 10th trip to the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, Blinken will address negotiation efforts with Egyptian officials, according to the US state department. Those efforts were further complicated on Wednesday by the wave of pager blasts in Lebanon.
Blinken is expected to meet with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and hold a press conference with foreign minister Badr Abdelatty, but will not be visiting Israel during this round of diplomacy.
US officials say privately that they do not expect any breakthroughs at Wednesday’s talks in Cairo, but Blinken’s visit will aim to keep up the pressure campaign for a deal between Israel and Hamas.
“He’ll be meeting with Egyptian officials about a number of things, but squarely on the agenda is how we get a proposal that we think would secure agreement from both parties,” said US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
After the wave of explosions across Lebanon, the influx of so many casualties has reportedly overwhelmed hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds.
At one hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an AFP correspondent saw people being treated in a car park on thin mattresses, with medical gloves on the ground and ambulance stretchers covered in blood.
“In all my life I’ve never seen someone walking on the street … and then explode,” said Musa, a resident of the southern suburbs, requesting to be identified only by his first name.
The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, the family and a source close to the group said.
A son of Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar was also among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut was wounded but his injuries were not serious, Iranian state media reported.
In total, nine deaths have been reported with almost 3,000 injured.
Hezbollah is known for using pagers to communicate because, unlike mobile phones, they can evade location-tracking and monitoring from Israeli intelligence.
Yossi Melman, a co-author of Spies Against Armageddon, said “a lot of people in Hezbollah carried these pagers, not just top echelon commanders”.
However, a security breach of this scale is seen by experts as hugely embarrassing and damaging to morale in the militant groups morale. Those wounded in the attack include Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, according to reports.
“This would easily be the biggest counterintelligence failure that Hezbollah has had in decades,” said Jonathan Panikoff, the US government’s former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East.
Pager manufacturer says devices used by Hezbollah were ‘made in Europe’
The Taiwanese manufacturer linked to pagers that exploded as part of a deadly attack against Hezbollah has said the devices were made by a company in Europe, as the militant group blamed Israel and vowed revenge attacks.
Images of the pagers emerged in the aftermath with stickers on the back appearing consistent with pagers made by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, according to analysis by Reuters.
On Wednesday, the company’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang, denied it had made the pagers, saying they were manufactured by a company in Europe that had the right to use its brand. “The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,’ he said. “We are a responsible company. This is very embarrassing,” he said.
Hezbollah will continue operations in ‘support of Gaza’
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said early on Wednesday that it “will continue, as in all the past days, its blessed operations to support Gaza”, after a deadly wave of exploding pagers killed nine and injured thousands.
“This path is ongoing and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday,” the group said in a statement issued on Telegram.
Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, with the group pinning the blame for the blasts on Israel.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the wave of explosions, which came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s 7 October attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah along the country’s border with Lebanon.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Hezbollah has said it “will continue” its operations to “support Gaza”, after a deadly wave of exploding pagers killed 9 people and wounded almost 3,000 more.
“This path is ongoing and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday,” the group said in a statement issued on Telegram.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the unprecedented security breach that saw thousands of pagers detonate across Lebanon. Israel’s military declined to comment on the blasts.
More on this in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.
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Among those killed on Tuesday was an 10-year-old girl, according to Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad. The latest casualty figures by officials include about 2,750 wounded, with most injuries to the face and hands. Those wounded include Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani.
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Hezbollah fighters in Syria were also injured in the attack, with several reportedly being treated in hospitals in Damascus. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Saberin News reported that some guards in Syria had also been killed.
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The pager explosions across Lebanon marked “an extremely concerning escalation,” the UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said. The spokesperson for the secretary general of the United Nations, Stéphane Dujarric, noted the “extremely volatile” context.
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A Hezbollah official said the detonation of the pagers was the biggest security breach for the group in nearly a year of conflict with Israel. The blasts appeared to exploit the low-tech pagers that Hezbollah has adopted in order to prevent the targeted assassinations of its members. Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said the country was bracing for a major retaliation by Hezbollah.
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Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel. “We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” a statement said. The son of the Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar reportedly also died in the explosions, as did two sons of other prominent Hezbollah figures.
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There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the blasts. The attack took place just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by the 7 October Hamas attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah.
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Lebanon’s health ministry put hospitals across the country on “maximum alert” and instructed citizens to distance themselves from wireless communication devices. Schools in Lebanon will close on Wednesday.
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The US government said it “was not aware of this incident in advance”. The state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told a briefing that Washington was not involved and did not know who was responsible. He added it was “too early to say” how it would affect Gaza ceasefire talks.
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The Foreign Office has urged “calm heads and de-escalation”. An FCDO spokesperson said: “We continue to monitor the situation in Lebanon closely and the UK is working with diplomatic and humanitarian partners in the region. The civilian casualties following these explosions are deeply distressing.