By Laila Bassam
BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hundreds of members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, including fighters and medics, were seriously wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded, a security source told Reuters.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
The explosions took place amid heightened violence between Israel and Hezbollah, who have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza war erupted last October in the worst such escalation in years.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military to Reuters enquiries about the detonations.
A Reuters journalist saw ambulances rushing through the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut amid widespread panic. Residents said explosions were taking place even 30 minutes after the initial blasts. The security source added that devices were also exploding in the south of Lebanon.
Groups of people huddled at the entrance of buildings to check on people they knew who may have been wounded, the Reuters journalist said.
Regional broadcasters carrying CCTV footage which showed what appeared to be a small handheld device placed next to a grocery store cashier where an individual was paying spontaneously exploding. In other footage, an explosion appeared to knock out someone standing at a fruit stand at a market area.
Lebanon’s crisis operations center, which is run by the health ministry, asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of wounded coming into for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen on Israel. Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire constantly ever since, while avoiding a major escalation as war rages in Gaza to the south.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from towns and villages on both sides of the border by the hostilties.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily; Writing by Nadine Awadalla and Clauda Tanios; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Angus MacSwan)
