NINE PEOPLE HAVE died and around 2,800 have been reported wounded, said Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad, when Hezbollah members’ paging devices exploded simultaneously across Lebanon today.
Hezbollah have said that Israel is “fully responsible” for the detonations, and warned that the country will be punished.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” the group said in a statement, adding that Israel “will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression”.
The blasts “killed nine people, including a girl”, minister Firass Abiad said in a casualty update.
“About 2,800 people were injured, about 200 of them critically” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands and stomach, he added.
The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, her family and a source close to the group said.
Iran’s ambassador to Beirut was also wounded in a pager explosion but his injuries were not serious, state media reported.
“Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was injured in a pager explosion,” state television said, adding that his wounds were “superficial” and that he was “conscious and in no danger”.
The sons of Hezbollah lawmakers Ali Ammar and Hassan Fadlallah were among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
In neighbouring Syria, 14 people were wounded “after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded,” Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The explosions this afternoon hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around the country, in the first such incident since the group began trading near-daily fire with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, Hamas.
Earlier today, Israel had announced a broadening of the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah along the northern border with Lebanon.
Until now, Israel’s objectives have been to crush Hamas and to bring home the hostages taken by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attacks that sparked the war.
“The political-security cabinet updated the goals of the war this evening, so that they include the following section: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Since October, the unabating exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in Lebanon have forced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border to flee their homes
Not formally declared as a war, the exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah have killed hundreds of mostly fighters in Lebanon, and dozens on the Israeli side.
There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Hezbollah had instructed its members to avoid mobile phones after the Gaza war began and to rely instead on its own telecommunications system to prevent Israeli breaches.
On Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said “military action” was the “only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities”.
Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Israel’s regional enemy Iran, claimed a dozen attacks on Israeli positions on Monday and three more today.
An Israeli strike today killed three people in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health ministry, with Israel saying they were Hezbollah members.
“The possibility for an agreement is running out as Hezbollah continues to tie itself to Hamas,” Gallant was quoted as telling visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein in a statement from his office.
Netanyahu later told Hochstein he was seeking a “fundamental change” in the security situation on Israel’s northern border.
Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem said at the weekend that his group had “no intention of going to war”, but that “there will be large losses on both sides” in the event of all-out conflict.
For now, it is unlikely Israel’s battle with Hezbollah will end.
“Without a ceasefire in Gaza, there will be no agreement on the question of the border with Lebanon,” said Michael Horowitz, of the Le Beck International security consultancy.
Israel’s aim in expanding the war would be to “create a ‘buffer zone’ in southern Lebanon”, Horowitz added.
Hamas, meanwhile, said it was preparing for more war, with assistance from fighters and support from across the region.
In a letter to the group’s Yemeni allies, the Iran-backed Huthi rebels, Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar said: “We have prepared ourselves to fight a long war of attrition.”
“Our combined efforts with you… will break this enemy and inflict defeat on it”, Sinwar said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due back in the region this week to try to revive stalled ceasefire talks for the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, UN member states will today debate a draft resolution demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of all Palestinian territories within 12 months.
General Assembly resolutions are not binding, but Israel has already denounced the new text as “disgraceful”.
In Gaza, rescuers said several Israeli air strikes killed at least seven people overnight.
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