Thousands of people have reportedly been injured by exploding pagers across Lebanon and Syria in what appears to be an attack targeting Hezbollah members on Tuesday, reports Reuters and other news agencies. Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said at least eight people, including a child, have been killed, and around 2,800 others have been injured, according to CNN.
The explosions occurred as Hezbollah has been engaged in warfare with Israel for months, coinciding with the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and a day after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said time was “running out” for a diplomatic solution with the group. CNN reports the Israel Defense Forces has said it won’t comment on the detonations.
Reuters and The Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources saying the pagers that exploded were part of a new shipment the group had recently received and that some people felt the devices heating up, then disposed of them before they exploded. We haven’t seen any reports with confirmed details of how the devices may have been tampered with to make them explode or how they were triggered.
Videos of the explosions and their aftermath have already spread widely across news networks and social media (warning: the video below shows people being injured by the attacks). One appears to show a man looking down to check his pager while checking out at a store before it explodes, sending him flying backward. Another surveillance video from a market posted by The New York Times shows a man injured after a device exploded in his bag at around 3:30PM local time.