BEIRUT: Explosions in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon were apparently a second wave of detonations of electronic devices, state media said on Wednesday.
The report said walkie-talkies and even solar equipment were targeted a day after hundreds of pagers blew up.
At least 20 people were killed and 450 were wounded, the Health Ministry said.
A Hezbollah official told the Associated Press that walkie-talkies used by the group exploded.
Lebanon’s official news agency reported that solar energy systems exploded in homes in several areas of Beirut and southern Lebanon, wounding at least one girl.
The new blasts hit a country thrown into confusion and anger after Tuesday’s pager bombings, which appeared to be a complex Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah members that caused civilian casualties, too.
At least 12 people were killed, including two children, and about 2,800 people were wounded as hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded wherever they happened to be — in homes, cars, at grocery stores and in cafes.
Wednesday’s blasts caused fires, injuries and a state of hysteria because some of the devices were being carried by security personnel during the funeral ceremonies for the victims of the pager explosions on Tuesday.
Explosions were heard in the southern suburbs of Beirut and several areas in the south and the Bekaa Valley.
Many were injured outside hospitals where the wounded from Tuesday’s bombings were being treated. Several of the wounded were transferred to Baalbek hospitals.
Some devices exploded with their carriers in front of the American University Hospital in Beirut.
Four cars containing devices exploded in the town of Aabbassiyeh in the south, three people were injured when a device exploded in a car in Jdeidet Marjeyoun, and parked cars exploded in Nabatieh because there were wireless devices in them.
Ambulances rushed everywhere, and Hezbollah supporters went out on motorcycles searching for victims after abandoning all their communication devices.
The Lebanese Army Command asked citizens “not to gather in places witnessing security incidents to make way for the arrival of medical teams.”
According to initial information, the devices that exploded on Wednesday are Icom V82 models, bought in the deal for pagers last spring.
Panic increased when information circulated on social media about the explosion of solar panels connected to Internet devices. There were also claims that computers exploded.
A Hezbollah member in a video clip that showed a room with shrapnel damage, said: “This was because of the device’s battery. I removed it from the device and put it aside. Look what happened.”
Footage showed fires in residential apartments in the southern suburbs of Beirut and in the south, and casualties during funeral ceremonies after their devices exploded.
The Axios website reported that “Israel blew up thousands of wireless communication devices used by Hezbollah elements in a second wave.”
In the first wave of bombings, it appeared that small amounts of explosives had been hidden in the thousands of pagers delivered to Hezbollah and then remotely detonated.
The reports of further electronic devices exploding suggested even greater infiltration of boobytraps into Lebanon’s supply chain.
It also deepens concerns over the attacks in which hundreds of devices exploded in public areas, often with many bystanders, with no certainty of who was holding the rigged devices.
20 killed, 450 injured in second wave of blasts in Lebanon
https://arab.news/nh9ns
20 killed, 450 injured in second wave of blasts in Lebanon
- Walkie-talkies, solar equipment targeted day after pagers blast, report says
- New blasts hit a country thrown into confusion, anger after Tuesday’s bombings
Palestinian president meets British FM in Ramallah
- Mahmoud Abbas briefed David Lammy on Israeli aggression in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
LONDON: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Monday at the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in Ramallah.
Abbas discussed with Lammy the need to implement UN Security Council Resolution 2735, which calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the coastal enclave.
He highlighted the UK’s backing for the efforts to gain international recognition of the State of Palestine and its full membership in the UN, as part of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He briefed Lammy on the latest Israeli aggressions in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the WAFA news agency reported.
Lebanon president, US general discuss Hezbollah-Israel truce
- Kurilla and Aoun spoke about “the situation in the south and the stages of implementing the Israeli withdrawal from the south,” the presidency said
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s president and a top US general discussed on Monday the implementation of a fragile truce between Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel in the south of the country, the presidency said.
President Joseph Aoun and the head of US Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, met as a January 26 deadline to fully implement the terms of the ceasefire approached.
Kurilla and Aoun spoke about “the situation in the south and the stages of implementing the Israeli withdrawal from the south,” the presidency said.
Under the November 27 ceasefire accord, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside UN peacekeepers in the south of Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws.
At the same time, Hezbollah is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the country’s south.
A committee composed of Israeli, Lebanese, French and US delegates, alongside a representative from the UN peacekeeping force, has been tasked with monitoring the implementation of the deal.
Former army chief Aoun was elected head of state on Thursday by lawmakers — a vote that followed the weakening of Hamas in the war — ending a more than two-year deadlock during which the position was vacant.
Aoun and Kurilla also discussed “ways to activate cooperation between the Lebanese and American armies,” the presidency said.
The United States has been a key financial backer of the Lebanese armed forces, especially since the country’s economy collapsed in 2019.
Meanwhile, Israel carried out air strikes in east and south Lebanon on Sunday, with the Israeli military saying it struck Hezbollah targets including smuggling routes along the border with Syria.
Israeli strikes in south Lebanon on Friday killed five people, according to the Lebanese health ministry, with the Israeli military saying it targeted a Hezbollah weapons truck.
Angry hostage families harangue Israeli hard-liner Smotrich
- Smotrich described the deal taking shape as “a catastrophe” for Israel’s security
- He said Israel should keep up its campaign in Gaza until the complete surrender of Hamas
JERUSALEM: Angry members of some of the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza harangued Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday over his opposition to a deal being negotiated in Qatar to halt the fighting and bring their relatives home.
Smotrich described the deal taking shape as “a catastrophe” for Israel’s security and said Israel should keep up its campaign in Gaza until the complete surrender of Hamas, the militant group that ran the enclave before the war.
Dozens of members of the hostage families, many carrying photographs of the missing, squeezed into a committee room in the Israeli parliament where a meeting of the finance committee was held to examine the 2025 budget.
Some furious, some crying and pleading, they attacked Smotrich in an emotionally charged encounter that lasted for more than an hour, accusing him of abandoning the 98 Israeli and foreign hostages still left in Gaza.
“These kidnapped people can be returned,” Ofir Angrest, whose brother Matan was taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“The conditions are ripe, it’s time for a deal, the Prime Minister said it. How can you, the Minister of Finance, oppose the return of all these abductees?“
Smotrich, leader of one of the hard-line nationalist religious parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, has been among the loudest opponents of a deal which he described as a “surrender” to Hamas.
Qatar, which is brokering the talks alongside Egypt and the United States, said it had given a draft agreement to both Israel and Hamas following a “breakthrough” overnight.
Yechiel Yehud, whose daughter Arbel was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and whose son Dolev was killed, reminded Smotrich that he had visited their home in the kibbutz.
“I know your heart is in the right place, but you are required to do more than that,” he said.
Power outages in Sudan after drone attack on major dam
PORT SUDAN: The seat of Sudan’s army-aligned government was without power on Monday, AFP correspondents said, after a drone attack blamed on paramilitaries hit a major hydroelectric dam in the war-torn country’s north.
The Sudanese army, at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, said in a statement that the attack on Merowe Dam was part of a “systematic campaign” against military sites but also targeting “vital” infrastructure.
AFP journalists in Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where the army-aligned government and the United Nations have been based since the war’s early days, said widespread power outages have persisted since early Monday.
The army said that Merowe Dam and its power station, located about 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of the capital Khartoum and serving Port Sudan and other areas, were hit by “a number of suicide drones.”
“Some losses were incurred, which will be repaired,” the army statement said.
Online footage, which AFP could not independently verify, showed fires engulfing the dam’s electrical infrastructure.
The RSF did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Since the early morning attack, local media said that the army-controlled cities of Atbara, Dongola and Omdurman — across the Nile from Khartoum — have also been hit by power outages.
In November last year, the army accused the RSF of targeting Merowe with 16 drones, though no casualties or significant damage were reported at the time.
The dam is one of Sudan’s biggest sources of hydroelectric power.
Merowe city, in Sudan’s Northern State, is also home to a major military airport.
The latest attack came two days after the army recaptured Wad Madani, the capital of the central state of Al-Jazira, after more than a year of paramilitary control.
In addition to decimating Sudan’s already fragile infrastructure, the war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and pushed many Sudanese to the brink of famine.
Celebrations in Sudan’s Wad Madani as army takes over strategic city
- More than 12 million displaced in nearly two years of war
- Army’s recapture of Wad Madani boosts morale, squeezes RSF
- RSF denies accusations of abuses in El Gezira
WAD MADANI: Civilians and soldiers celebrated in Wad Madani, the capital of Sudan’s El Gezira state, after it was recaptured by the Sudanese army from the paramilitary Rapid Support Services, marking a possible turning point in a devastating near two-year civil war.
“We are so happy, we can’t express ourselves,” said one woman on Sunday, as soldiers shot into the air and people cheered on the streets. “A whole year we have been squeezed, we haven’t been able to breathe.”
The war began in the capital Khartoum in April 2023 over the integration of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Services (RSF). It has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, pushing more than 12 million people out of their homes, and plunging half of the population into hunger.
The RSF’s occupation of El Gezira turned the fertile state into one at risk of famine. Its tight-knit villages were emptied out by violent raids as fields lay fallow or were set on fire, residents and eyewitnesses have said.
The RSF denies the accusations and says it is fighting rogue actors who are committing abuses.
The army’s ability to regain full control of the state would be pivotal in its attempts to choke the RSF’s supply lines to Khartoum and the army-controlled eastern half of the country. The RSF still controls most of the capital.
MORALE BOOST
“The SAF’s capture of Wad Madani boosts its own morale and puts large RSF contingents at risk of encirclement in the area,” said Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
“It also frees the SAF to intensify pressure on Khartoum before potentially shifting its focus westward,” he said, while warning that the RSF could launch a counteroffensive on Al-Fashir, the army’s last remaining holdout in the western Darfur region.
“This is a big victory that we thank God for, but we are not stopping, we are going swiftly, we are in a hurry, and God-willing soon every inch of Sudan will be cleansed,” General Shams el-Din Kabbashi, deputy leader of the armed forces, told troops and civilians in Madani.
The bodies of RSF soldiers could be seen on the road and bridge leading into the city, but eyewitnesses reported few clashes inside Madani.
The relatively swift takeover comes after weeks of advances by the army in surrounding villages, newly equipped in recent months with fresh armaments and new recruits to allied forces.
HELPED BY DEFECTORS
The Joint Forces, a collection of former rebel groups, as well as Sudan Shield, led by RSF defector Abuagla Keikal, participated in the assault.
The RSF chose to withdraw after being overwhelmed in the lead-up to the takeover, sources in the paramilitary said. They added that its soldiers were exhausted by airstrikes and by dwindling stocks of ammunition and supplies.
They withdrew northwards toward other towns in the state and Khartoum, eyewitnesses said, chased by army airstrikes.
Fiercer fighting could be expected as the RSF fights to maintain control of Khartoum, where the army has made gains, the RSF sources said.
Many of the paramilitary’s fighters come from militias and tribal groups outside of Gezira and had little will to fight for the country’s center, the RSF sources added.
Residents said there had been extensive looting.
“If we have just 1000 pounds ($0.40) they tell us to hand it over. They exhausted and humiliated us,” said lawyer Ahmed Abdelqadir, who along with other women and children cheered for the SAF soldiers as they drove through the town.
The paramilitary soldiers who roamed through the town raided homes and killed the residents if they didn’t find anything, she said.
“They left us with nothing.”
