Death toll in Lebanon pager-explosion attack rises to 12

A person is carried on a stretcher outside American University of Beirut Medical Center as people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded and killed when the pagers they use to communicate with exploded. (Reuters)
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Updated 18 September 2024
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Death toll in Lebanon pager-explosion attack rises to 12

  • 2 children and a woman among the dead and 300 people are in critical condition in hospital, says health minister
  • Israeli authorities are accused of booby-trapping and detonating 3,000 handheld pager devices used by members of Hezbollah

BEIRUT: A day after thousands of handheld pagers used by members of Hezbollah in Lebanon to communicate with each other exploded simultaneously, the death toll from attack has risen to 12, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said on Wednesday.

Two children and a woman were among the dead, he added, and the number of people in critical condition in hospital has increased to 300. Hezbollah and Lebanese authorities accuse Israel of carrying out the attack.

A medical source told Arab News that Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Rassoul Al-Aazam Hospital alone has treated 400 injuries out of approximately 2,800 caused by the pager explosions, and St. George Hospital, also linked with Hezbollah, reported 30 cases.

The injured at the hospitals included medical staff, nursing personnel and administrative workers who had pagers. As a result, Al-Rassoul Al-Aazam had to close its doors to other patients while it focused solely on treating injured members of staff. One of its nurses was reportedly among the dead.

Meanwhile other hospitals, of which there are about 100 across the country, the health minister said, faced significant pressure as they attempted to cope with floods of hundreds of patients injured in the explosions.

The medical source exclusively revealed to Arab News that “all the injured individuals presented alternative names instead of their real identities at the hospitals. Some of the injured sustained burns and were transferred to Geitawi Hospital, the only specialized burns hospital in Beirut.”

The source added that a majority of the patients sustained eye injuries and hundreds of them needed emergency surgery. Many of these operations were carried out at a specialist eye hospital in Beirut’s National Museum area, where surgeries continued late into the night on Tuesday.

Ophthalmologist Elias Jradi, who is also an MP, said he “remained in the operating room performing continuous operations for more than seven hours.”

On Wednesday, Abiad said 460 operations were carried out on people injured by the pagers, who suffered various types of injuries affecting “the eyes, head, chest, waist and legs. The fingers and hands of some of the injured who were holding the pagers at the time of their explosion were amputated.”

He added that 750 people were injured in the south of the country, 150 in the Bekaa region, and 1,850 in Beirut and its southern suburbs.

The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, sustained facial injuries in the attack and was receiving treatment. Members of Hezbollah in Syria were also injured and treated in hospitals there.

For a second day, urgent calls for blood donations to help treat the injured continued on Wednesday. Meanwhile, accounts of the chaos and confusion that followed the attack continued to emerge.

Hussein, who helped to transport the injured in the southern suburbs of Beirut to the American University Hospital, said: “The scene in the street was terrifying; young people were bleeding and no one understood the cause. Some who were unaware of the situation mistakenly believed that these youths were suicide bombers who had detonated themselves. It was a state of utter chaos. I returned home late, feeling defeated, broken and psychologically shattered.”

Speculation grew in the 24 hours after the attack about the circumstances surrounding the explosions, fueled by media reports and leaked information from Lebanese security agencies, as well as sources in Israel and the US.

Reuters reported that “Mossad planted small quantities of explosives within 5,000 Taiwanese-made pager devices that Hezbollah had ordered months prior to the explosions that occurred. It appears that the conspiracy took several months to prepare.”

The devices carried the logo of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo and the shipment arrived in Lebanon in the spring. However, the company denied that it manufactured the pagers involved in the attack. It said they were made by a separate company in Hungary that had simply licensed the use of the Gold Apollo brand.

Reports suggested that Mossad managed to modify the devices during production by adding between 1 and 3 grams of explosive to the circuit boards. Such a modification would have been extremely difficult to detect, even using scanners. It is believed that an encrypted message triggered the detonation that caused about 3,000 pagers to explode simultaneously.

Hezbollah uses pagers because they are more difficult to track and monitor compared with more sophisticated smart communications devices, to which Israeli authorities have managed to gain access in recent months to target party members.

Citing information provided by intelligence sources, news website Al-Monitor reported: “Israel carried out the attack after it gathered information that Hezbollah suspected the pagers were compromised, prompting Israel to execute the detonation plan before it was too late.”

The sources added: “The original plan was to detonate the devices in case a full-scale war was to happen, in order to have a strategic advantage.”

The situation along the southern Lebanese front remained relatively calm on on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Iraq and Jordan sent medical supplies that arrived via Beirut airport. Aid workers affiliated with the Iranian Red Crescent also arrived in Beirut, as authorities in Iran accused Israel of “mass killing.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the “collective detonation of communication devices requires an international investigation and interest.”

Belgium’s deputy prime minister, Petra De Sutter, said that “the attack against Syria and Lebanon is a brutal escalation of violence,” as she called for “an international investigation and an end to the bloodshed.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati received a telephone call from Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, in which the latter expressed his country’s solidarity with Lebanon. Mikati received a similar message of support from Turkey’s minister of foreign affairs, Hakan Fidan.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Education and labor unions announced a nationwide shutdown following the attack.

Political figures from several parties and factions, including the opposition, visited the home of Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar to offer condolences following the death of his son in the explosions.

The National Disaster and Crisis Response Operations Coordination Committee was on alert in case of any further developments related to the incident.

Nasser Yassin, a government minister, said: “There is a shortage of ophthalmologists and eye surgeons. What happened yesterday was a real war.

“Discussions have mainly focused on housing, in case a new wave of migration takes place amid possible aggression expansion. We identified 100 schools that can be prepared for shelter. These are all potential scenarios that we have discussed to enhance our preparedness.”

On the issue of food security, Yassin said: “Lebanon’s food reserves are sufficient for more than three months, and a ship carrying 40,000 tonnes of wheat and flour is on its way.”


Palestinian appeals for blood donations unanswered in Gaza due to widespread hunger, malnutrition

Updated 8 sec ago
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Palestinian appeals for blood donations unanswered in Gaza due to widespread hunger, malnutrition

  • Nearly 2 million Palestinians face imminent risk of widespread hunger as Israel has mostly restricted access to sufficient humanitarian aid
  • Hospitals across Gaza are experiencing a critical shortage of essential medications, surgical supplies, and diagnostic imaging equipment

LONDON: Palestinian medics are facing challenging conditions while treating patients and the injured in the Gaza Strip amid ongoing Israeli attacks in the coastal enclave.

Health and medical staff have reported to the Wafa news agency that their appeals for community blood donations have gone largely unanswered due to widespread hunger and malnutrition, while life-saving resources are rapidly depleting in many hospitals.

Nearly 2 million Palestinians face an imminent risk of widespread hunger as Israel has mostly restricted access to sufficient humanitarian aid since it resumed its military actions in March.

Hospitals across Gaza are experiencing a critical shortage of essential medications, surgical supplies, and diagnostic imaging equipment, hindering doctors from carrying out emergency procedures necessary to save lives, Wafa added.

Operating rooms, intensive care units, and emergency departments are struggling under the pressure of a growing number of critically injured patients, and fuel is running out to generate power.

On Monday, Palestinian medical sources in Gaza revealed that 41 percent of kidney failure patients have died since October 2023 amid ongoing Israeli attacks and restrictions on humanitarian and medical aid.

Israeli forces destroyed the Noura Al-Kaabi Dialysis Center in northern Gaza over the weekend, one of the few specialized facilities providing kidney dialysis to 160 patients.


UN chief urges Yemen’s Houthis to release aid workers

Updated 7 min 8 sec ago
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UN chief urges Yemen’s Houthis to release aid workers

  • “I renew my call for their immediate and unconditional release,” Guterres said
  • “The UN and its humanitarian partners should never be targeted, arrested or detained while carrying out their mandates”

DUBAI: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday demanded Yemen’s Houthi militants release dozens of aid workers, including UN staff, a year after their arrest.

The Iran-backed militants, who control much of the war-torn country, detained 13 UN personnel and more than 50 employees of aid groups last June.

“I renew my call for their immediate and unconditional release,” Guterres said in a statement issued by the office of his special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg.

“The UN and its humanitarian partners should never be targeted, arrested or detained while carrying out their mandates for the benefit of the people they serve,” he added.

A decade of civil war has plunged Yemen into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than half of the population relying on aid.

The arrests prompted the United Nations to limit its deployments and suspend activities in some regions of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country.

The Houthis at the time claimed an “American-Israeli spy cell” was operating under the cover of aid groups — an accusation firmly rejected by the UN.

Guterres also lamented the “deplorable tragedy” of the death in detention of a World Food Programme staffer in February.

The Houthis have kidnapped, arbitrarily detained and tortured hundreds of civilians, including aid workers, during their war against a Saudi-led coalition supporting the beleaguered internationally recognized government.


Lebanon on bumpy road to public transport revival

Updated 03 June 2025
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Lebanon on bumpy road to public transport revival

  • Public buses, now equipped with GPS tracking, have been slowly making a come back

BEIRUT: On Beirut’s chaotic, car-choked streets, Lebanese student Fatima Fakih rides a shiny purple bus to university, one of a fleet rolled out by authorities to revive public transport in a country struggling to deliver basic services.
The 19-year-old says the spacious public buses are “safer, better and more comfortable,” than the informal network of private buses and minivans that have long substituted for mass transport.
“I have my bus card — I don’t have to have money with me,” she added, a major innovation in Lebanon, where cash is king and many private buses and minivans have no tickets at all.
Lebanon’s public transport system never recovered from the devastating 1975-1990 civil war that left the country in ruins, and in the decades since, car culture has flourished.
Even before the economic crisis that began in 2019 — plunged much of the population into poverty and sent transport costs soaring — the country was running on empty, grappling with crumbling power, water and road infrastructure.
But public buses, now equipped with GPS tracking, have been slowly returning.
They operate along 11 routes — mostly in greater Beirut but also reaching north, south and east Lebanon — with a private company managing operations. Fares start at about 80 cents.


Passengers told AFP the buses were not only safer and more cost-effective, but more environmentally friendly.
They also offer a respite from driving on Lebanon’s largely lawless, potholed roads, where mopeds hurtle in all directions and traffic lights are scarce.
The system officially launched last July, during more than a year of hostilities between Israel and militant group Hezbollah that later slammed the brakes on some services.
Ali Daoud, 76, who remembers Lebanon’s long-defunct trains and trams, said the public bus was “orderly and organized” during his first ride.
The World Bank’s Beirut office told AFP that Lebanon’s “reliance on private vehicles is increasingly unsustainable,” noting rising poverty rates and vehicle operation costs.
Ziad Nasr, head of Lebanon’s public transport authority, said passenger numbers now averaged around 4,500 a day, up from just a few hundred at launch.
He said authorities hope to extend the network, including to Beirut airport, noting the need for more buses, and welcoming any international support.
France donated around half of the almost 100 buses now in circulation in 2022.
Consultant and transport expert Tammam Nakkash said he hoped the buses would be “a good start” but expressed concern at issues including the competition.
Private buses and minivans — many of them dilapidated and barrelling down the road at breakneck speed — cost similar to the public buses.
Shared taxis are also ubiquitous, with fares starting at around $2 for short trips.
Several incidents of violence targeted the new public buses around their launch last year.


Student and worker Daniel Imad, 19, said he welcomed the idea of public buses but had not tried them yet.
People “can go where they want for a low price” by taking shared taxis, he said before climbing into a one at a busy Beirut intersection.
Public transport could also have environmental benefits in Lebanon, where climate concerns often take a back seat to daily challenges like long power blackouts.
A World Bank climate and development report last year said the transport sector was Lebanon’s second-biggest contributor to greenhouse gas and air pollution, accounting for a quarter of emissions, only behind the energy sector.
Some smaller initiatives have also popped up, including four hybrid buses in east Lebanon’s Zahle.
Nabil Mneimne from the United Nations Development Programme said Lebanon’s first fully electric buses with a solar charging system were set to launch this year, running between Beirut and Jbeil (Byblos) further north.
In the capital, university student Fakih encouraged everyone to take public buses, “also to protect the environment.”
Beirut residents often complain of poor air quality due to heavy traffic and private, diesel-fueled electricity generators that operate during power outages.
“We don’t talk about this a lot but it’s very important,” she said, arguing that things could improve in the city “if we all took public transport.”


UN says deadly attacks around Gaza aid sites ‘a war crime’

Updated 59 min 36 sec ago
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UN says deadly attacks around Gaza aid sites ‘a war crime’

  • Rescuers say Israeli fire killed dozens of people in recent days as they approached an aid distribution center in southern Gaza
  • Volker Turk describes attacks on Gazans trying to access paltry amounts of food aid as 'unconscionable'

GENEVA: UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that “deadly attacks” on civilians around aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip constituted “a war crime.”
Rescuers in the Palestinian territory said Israeli fire targeting civilians near an aid distribution center in the southern city of Rafah killed 27 people on Tuesday, raising an earlier toll.
It came after a similar incident on Sunday when rescuers said 31 people were killed at the same location, witnesses saying they had been on their way to collect aid.
“Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable,” Turk said in a statement.
“For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured.”
The US-backed GHF is a recently formed group that Israel has cooperated with to implement a new aid distribution mechanism in Gaza.
The United Nations does not work with the foundation because of concerns that it does not meet core humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.
Turk called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each attack, and for those responsible to be held to account.
“Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime,” he said.
“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism.
“This militarised system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned.”


UN convoy attacked on the way to Sudan’s Al-Fashir, UNICEF says

Updated 03 June 2025
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UN convoy attacked on the way to Sudan’s Al-Fashir, UNICEF says

  • “We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked,” UNICEF spokesperson Eva Hinds said
  • She did not say who was responsible or elaborate on the reported casualties

GENEVA: A UN convoy delivering food into Sudan’s Al-Fashir in North Darfur came under attack overnight, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that initial reports indicated “multiple casualties.”

“We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked last night while positioned in Al Koma, North Darfur, waiting for approval to proceed to Al-Fashir,” UNICEF spokesperson Eva Hinds said in response to questions.

She did not say who was responsible or elaborate on the reported casualties.

Aid has frequently come under the crossfire in the two-year-old war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which has left more than half the population facing crisis levels of hunger.

In a statement, the RSF’s aid commission blamed an airstrike by the army, as did local activists. The army did not respond to a request for comment.

Al Koma is controlled by the RSF, and earlier this week saw a drone strike that claimed several civilian lives, according to local activists.

Famine conditions have previously been reported in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur. The fighting and barriers to the delivery of aid put in place by both sides have cut off supplies.

The attack is the latest of several assaults on aid in recent days. It follows the repeated shelling of UN World Food Programme premises in Al-Fashir by the RSF and an attack on El Obeid hospital in North Kordofan that killed several medics late last month.