BEIRUT - Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated late on Sept 18 across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source and a witness said, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers.
Three people were killed in Lebanon’s Bekaa region, the state news agency reported, and dozens of people were wounded in the latest device blast.
At least one of the blasts took place near a funeral organised by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed 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 Sept 18 it had attacked Israeli 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.
Israel’s spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of sophisticated operations on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before the detonations on Sept 17, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.
The death toll from the blasts on Sept 17 rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Sept 18. The attack wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the militant group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for an independent investigation into the events surrounding exploding pagers.
The simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, without knowing who held the devices or their location violated international human rights law and possibly international humanitarian law, Mr Turk said in a statement.
“There must be an independent, thorough and transparent investigation as to the circumstances of these mass explosions, and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held to account,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sept 18 that civilian objects should not be weaponised.
“I think it’s very important that there is an effective control of civilian objects, not to weaponise civilian objects – that should be a rule that... governments should, be able to implement,” Mr Guterres said at a briefing at UN headquarters.
A Taiwanese pager maker denied that it had produced the pager devices which exploded in the audacious attack.
Gold Apollo said the devices were made 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 attack but normally the group announces such strikes shortly after carrying them out, suggesting it fired at the Israeli artillery positions on Sept 18.
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, 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 United States and Iran.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel 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 Mr Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Centre.
Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, said in a statement it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and Israel should await a response to the pager “massacre” which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or dead.
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 Hamas commanders and leaders blamed on Israel since the start of the Gaza war. REUTERS, AFP
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