BEIRUT: Hezbollah has vowed to punish Israel for a deadly assault in which hundreds of paging devices used by the group’s members exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon.
There was no immediate statement from Israel on the wave of blasts that killed 9 people, and injured around 2,800 others.
The assault came just hours following Israel has announced it was broadening the aims of the war on Gaza to include its fight against Hamas’s ally Hezbollah along its border with Lebanon.
Hezbollah said in a in a statement on Tuesday, “We hold the Israeli enemy completely responsible for this criminal aggression,” saying that Israel “will certainly receive its just punishment for this wicked aggression.”
On Wednesday, the group pledged in another statement on social media that it would continue its fight in support of Gaza and its people while reiterating it would revenge Tuesday’s explosion.
Similarly, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah will make a previously unscheduled speech at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, the group stated. Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said that the wave of explosions killed nine people, including a girl, and injured 2,800 others, 200 of them critically.
Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute told AFP that this was more than lithium batteries being forced into override. A son of Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar was also among the dead, a source told AFP. Iranian media reported that Tehran’s envoy in Beirut was also injured but his injuries were not serious.
According to Reuters news agency, Israel’s spy agency Mossad planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations. The Lebanese security source told the Reuters that the pagers were from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, but the firm said in a statement that it did not produce the devices. It stated that they were made by a firm called BAC which has a licence to use its brand, but gave no more information.
Reuters news agency reported that Israel and Gold Apollo did not immediately respond to its requests for comment. Israel’s brutal military operation has killed more than 41,252 people in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
