The pagers were given out to members of Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party and military group, US officials told the New York Times. Thousands of the pagers exploded indiscriminately in homes, hospitals, schools and shops, killing and injuring bystanders. Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was among the injured in the attack.
“Around 3:30 p.m. today, a very large number of wounded people with pager communication devices in their possession began arriving at hospital emergency rooms in the following areas: the suburbs, Beirut, the south, especially Tyre and the Bekaa,” said Dr. Firas Al-Abyad, Lebanon’s Minister of Public Health.
He added, “So far, the health emergency room at the Ministry of Public Health has recorded about 2,800 wounded, about 200 of whom are in critical condition and require surgery or admission to intensive care units. More than 150 units of blood have been provided. A preliminary toll has recorded nine martyrs, including an eight-year-old girl.”
He continued: “The majority of the injuries recorded were distributed between the face, abdomen, hands and eyes.”
The Israeli attack included the commission of multiple war crimes, including violating the laws of war regarding assassination, treachery and the prohibition of indiscriminate bombing.
Commenting on the attack, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden wrote, “What Israel has just done is, via *any* method, reckless. They blew up countless numbers of people who were driving (meaning cars out of control), shopping (your children are in the stroller standing behind him in the checkout line), et cetera. Indistinguishable from terrorism.”
Responding to global revulsion to the mass killing, Eylon Levy, Israel’s former government spokesman, defended the mass bombing, declaring, “It was literally an attack on personal devices given only to operatives of a terror organization. That’s the definition of a targeted counterterror attack.”
The bombing spree was likewise endorsed by Democratic US Senator John Fetterman, who wrote in a post on X, “I fully support efforts to target and neutralize any existential threat like Hezbollah” after sharing a screenshot of the news report of the attack.
The New York Times, citing US officials, said that “Israel hid explosive material in a shipment of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon.”
The Times continued, “The explosive material, as little as one or two ounces, was inserted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from the Gold Apollo company in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials.”
The attacks occurred just 24 hours after Israel’s security cabinet met to declare that it had “updated the objectives of the war” that had previously targeted Hamas following the October 7 attacks to include returning Israeli residents to Northern Gaza—a euphemism for escalating Israel’s war on Lebanon.
In August, Israel launched its largest attack on southern Lebanon since 2006, involving over 100 air force fighter jets. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the attacks involved over 40 targets.
Israel’s strikes on Lebanon are part of a US-backed military escalation throughout the Middle East, with the central target being Iran. The US is simultaneously sponsoring Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of over 40,000 people.
In April, an Israeli strike killed a group of Iranian military officers meeting in Damascus, to which Iran responded with a strike on Israel with 300 missiles and drones, nearly all of which were intercepted.
In July, Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, senior member of Hezbollah, with a strike in Beirut, followed by the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh at a military guesthouse in Iran.
These attacks followed the visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, where he vowed to expand the Gaza genocide into a war targeting Lebanon and Iran.
Following Netanyahu’s address to Congress, he met with Vice President Kamala Harris, who vowed, “I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”
In this month’s presidential debates, both Harris and former US President Donald Trump expressed their unequivocal support for the Gaza genocide and threatened both Iran and Lebanon.
Even as Israel expands its targeting of Lebanon, its ongoing mass killing, starvation and ethnic cleansing of the population of Gaza continues and intensifies.
On Monday, Gaza’s health ministry published the names of 34,344 Palestinians killed by Israeli massacres since the start of the genocide—a figure that includes neither those missing nor those who died of hunger and disease.
The first 14 pages of the document list 710 infants under the age of one. All told, the list includes 11,355 children under the age of 18.
In October 2023, James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, warned that Gaza was becoming a “graveyard for children.”
He added, “Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realized in just a fortnight. The numbers are appalling. Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.”
With the publication of the list of the thousands of children killed by the Israeli military, these warnings have been horrifyingly confirmed.
Photo: A Civil Defense first-responder carries a wounded man whose handheld pager exploded at al-Zahraa hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024 © AP Photo / Hussein Malla.
Source: World Socialist Web Site.
