Over 2700 Injured as Pagers Carried by Hezbollah Explode Simultaneously in Lebanon

Just as Israel said publicly it wants to de-escalate the war between it and Hezbollah, its Mossad covert ops organization is being blamed for planting of explosives within thousands of pagers which it triggered all at the same time yesterday.

The vicious attack involved new shipments of pagers distributed to Hezbollah personnel and those working with them primarily in Lebanon but also apparently in Syria. The pagers were reportedly handed out to help warn those within Hezbollah of possible Israeli assassination attempts against them, based on security information distributed from senior levels of the Hezbollah organization.

Hezbollah senior official Hassan Nasrallah said his organization learned Israeli intelligence personnel had learned of a way to hack and undermine its smartphones not long ago. Nasrallah directed his people to stop using those phones to avoid communication being intercepted and false messages distributed. He then switched his organization to use low-tech pagers instead. These were the devices which were only recently deployed among Hezbollah.

Sources close to what happened` believe the pagers were tampered with prior to final delivery by opening them up, installing explosives, and linking the miniature bombs so they could be detonated remotely. Those who studied the design of the pagers say there is no way simple battery explosions, something which can happen in portable compact electronic devices, could have created the substantial bodily damage which took place yesterday.

Within milliseconds after the pagers received the command to blow them up, those with the pagers on their belts, in their pockets, or held in their hands felt the shrapnel rip through their clothes, shredding skin, muscle tissue, fingers and entire hands, and organs close to the surface of the body. Some suffered severe face injures because they were either sitting down with the pagers in front of them when the explosives were set off or were holding the devices to read whatever incoming message had just arrived. By themselves the bombs were not big enough to instantly kill all around them, but they were powerful enough to cause serious harm to anyone nearby.

Hezbollah said the miniature explosives went off at precisely 3:39 PM local time, in “pagers belonging to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions”

At least 2750 people were badly injured in the incident, with over 400 in critical condition. Current estimates are that nine people were killed instantly as well. That death toll is expected to rise.

Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Aman, was said to have been badly injured in the attack. Numerous Hezbollah military advisors and planners were also hurt, as were innocent bystanders sitting or standing close to them.

Among the dead in Lebanon were a ten-year-old girl and her two brothers. A politician representing Hezbollah in the national legislature was also killed by one of the pagers.

Reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based NGO, said Hezbollah militia members who were stationed in Damascus, Syria, also suffered serious injuries when their pagers blew up at the same time as the ones in Lebanon. They are currently being treated in hospitals there.

A news organization affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several of its Syria-based guards were killed by some of the pagers as well.

Though there was vast chaos when the event happened, within a short time afterwards Lebanese officials and local health authorities mustered a surprisingly quick response to the assault. The Lebanese Red Cross reported after the fact that it sent out “130 ambulances and more than 500 [Emergency Medical Technicians, or EMTs” to provide on-the-scene treatment and quick transport to hospitals nearby for treatment.

A statement released by the American University of Beirut Medical Center late afternoon yesterday said it had already brought in over 160 “seriously injured” victims of the miniature bombs, “with more to come”.

Emergency warnings were sent out by multiple means after the incident telling people who had recently received new pagers not to turn them on, to remove their batteries, and to turn them over to authorities. A broader warning was also issued calling for individuals to avoid use of telecommunications systems in general for some time, until the full scope of the attack and the means used could be assessed.

After conducting what it called a “wide-ranging” investigation of the explosions and the compromised pagers which were around but had not yet been activated, Hezbollah issued a statement naming Israel as the criminal agent behind the pager detonations.

“After examining all the facts, available data and information about the heinous attack that took place this afternoon, we hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians and led to the martyrdom of a number of people,” Hezbollah authorities said in a formal statement yesterday.

Lebanon’s Information minister condemned the attack as an act of “Israeli aggression”.

Schools in and around Beirut were shut down yesterday to protect children, and as another message of condemnation for what Israel had just done.

Neither Israel nor its Mossad spy agency has claimed credit for the pager bombings. But an independent investigation by a least one major news outlet says it has evidence Mossad intercepted an order placed by representatives for Hezbollah from a Taiwanese manufacturer, rewired the devices to include the explosives, and then shipped them the rest of the way to Hezbollah headquarters. If true, this would represent one of the boldest supply chain disruption tricks ever used by a governmental organization to maim and kill.

The U.S. once again is simply standing by saying they knew nothing about what Mossad did. They instead asked Israel, the perpetrator of this crime, to investigate itself and get back to the U,.S. State Department to explain what happened.