Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

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Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

Ambulances are surrounded by people at the entrance of the ********* University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between ******* and Hezbollah fighters. 

Anwar Amro | Afp | Getty Images

Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated late on Wednesday afternoon across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source and a witness said, further hiking tensions with ******* a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers.

At least one of the blasts took place near a ******** organized by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those ******* the previous day when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country and wounded many of the group’s fighters.

The group, which was thrown briefly into disarray by the pager attacks, said on Wednesday it had attacked ******** artillery positions with rockets in the first strike at its arch-foe since blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East war.

The hand-held radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time that the pagers were bought, said a security source.

*******’s spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of sophisticated operations on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.

The ****** toll rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday. Tuesday’s ******* wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the militant group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.

A Taiwanese pager maker denied that it had produced the pager devices which exploded in an audacious ******* that raised the prospect of a full-scale war between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and *******.

Gold Apollo said the devices were made by under licence by a company called BAC, based in Hungary’s capital Budapest.

There was no immediate word on when Hezbollah had launched its latest rocket *******, but normally the group announces such strikes shortly after carrying them out, suggesting it fired at the ******** artillery positions on Wednesday.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against *******, whose military declined to comment on the blasts. The two sides have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, fuelling fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could drag in the ******* States and Iran.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused ******* of pushing the Middle East to the brink of a regional war by orchestrating a dangerous escalation on many fronts.

“Hezbollah wants to avoid an all-out war. It still wants to avoid one. But given the scale, the impact on families, on civilians, there will be pressure for a stronger response,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, said in a statement it would continue to support ****** in Gaza and ******* should await a response to the pager “massacre” which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or *****.

One Hezbollah official said the detonation was the group’s “biggest security breach” in its history.

Footage from hospitals reviewed by Reuters showed men with various injuries, some to the face, some with missing fingers and gaping wounds at the hip where the pagers were likely worn.

The plot appears to have been many months in the making, several sources told Reuters. It followed a series of assassinations of Hezbollah and ****** commanders and leaders blamed on ******* since the start of the Gaza war.

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