Hundreds of Lebanon-based Hezbollah fighters were injured Tuesday when the handheld pagers they use to communicate exploded, Lebanese state media reported.
The blasts took place in several suburbs of Beirut, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. Al-Manar TV, which is owned and operated by Hezbollah, said the injured were being transported to hospitals.
The direct cause of the explosions was not immediately clear.
However, a Hezbollah official told the Reuters news agency that the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel. Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador in Lebanon, was also injured in the incident, according to Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency.
It was not clear if Amani’s injuries were serious. Hezbollah is materially and financially backed by Iran.
Spiking West Bank violence:another front to Israel’s collection of conflicts
The incident comes just hours after Israel’s security cabinet released a statement vowing to return residents of Israel’s northern areas to their homes. Hezbollah, long Israel’s enemy, has repeatedly fired missiles at Israeli territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, causing many residents to flee south.
Israel has for months warned that it could launch a military operation to drive Hezbollah away from its border.
There was no immediate comment from Israel’s Defense Forces.
Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, are not new. They have been clashing and exchanging fire along their shared border since the mid-1980s. They fought a major war in 2006.
Hezbollah says it has upped its attacks on Israel as part of its support for Hamas in Gaza. But they are also connected to a broader regional commitment to oppose and pressure Israel. Lina Khatib, an expert on the Middle East at London think tank Chatham House, noted recently that Hezbollah’s fight with Israel may not ultimately be about helping Palestinians, or even Hamas, but about self-preservation.
“The group could have intervened on a large scale in October before Israel significantly weakened Hamas’s military capability, but it did not. Hezbollah would only engage in all-out war with Israel if the group felt it was facing an existential threat of its own (which, currently, it does not). It will not sacrifice itself for Palestine.”
