At least nine people were killed and 2,800 others, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were injured on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, security sources and the Lebanese Health Minister said.
Lebanon's Information Minister Ziad Makary said the government condemned the detonation of the pagers as an "Israeli aggression." Hezbollah also blamed Israel for the pager blasts and said it would receive "its fair punishment."
A Hezbollah official said, speaking on condition of anonymity that this pagers' detonation was the "biggest security breach" that the group had faced in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been locked in cross-border warfare since the Gaza war flared last October, in the worst such escalation in years.
Hezbollah on Tuesday confirmed that three people died as a result of the blasts, including two of its fighters. The third victim was a girl, the group said, adding that it would conduct an investigation into the causes of the blasts.
Hezbollah Chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was not hurt in the explosions, the group said.
The wave of explosions lasted about an hour after the initial detonations, which occurred about 3:45 p.m. local time. It was not immediately clear how the devices were detonated.
The Lebanese Foreign Ministry described the explosions as a "dangerous and deliberate Israeli escalation" that it said had been accompanied by Israeli threats to expand the war toward Lebanon on a large scale.
Lebanese internal security forces report that several wireless communication devices detonated across Lebanon, particularly in Beirut's southern suburbs-a Hezbollah stronghold. The pagers that detonated were the newest model to be imported by Hezbollah in recent months, said three security sources.
Lebanoese Health Minister Firass Abiad said 2,800 people were wounded in the explosions and 200 of them were in critical condition. Several of those casualties were Hezbollah fighters who are also the sons of the country's top officials, two security sources told a major media outlet.
One of the fighters killed was the son of a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, Ali Ammar, they said. Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, suffered a "superficial injury" in a pager explosion and is currently under observation in hospital, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said. There was no word from the Israeli government on the explosions.
In neighboring Syria, 14 were injured "after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded," Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel announced that it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by the Hamas attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah along its border with Lebanon.
Thus far, all of Israel's objectives have been to defeat Hamas and return the hostages taken during the October 7 Palestinian militant group attacks that started the war.
The Israeli domestic security agency on Tuesday said it had foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to assassinate an ex-senior defense official over the next few days.
The Shin Bet agency, refusing to identify the official, said in a statement it had confiscated an explosive device with a remote detonation system, powered by a mobile phone and a camera, which Hezbollah planned to operate from Lebanon.
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