Death Toll in Lebanon Climbs to At Least 26 With Thousands Injured as Explosions Spread to Other Devices

By Dave Levitan | September 18, 2024 | 1:50pm

Photo by Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

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Death Toll in Lebanon Climbs to At Least 26 With Thousands Injured as Explosions Spread to Other Devices

A day after hundreds of pagers supposedly belonging to Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria exploded, the attack appears to have spread. On Wednesday more explosions were reported across the country, traced in particular to other devices including walkie-talkies.

The death toll across the two days of panic and mayhem is now at least 26; Hezbollah has confirmed that only eight of those are among its ranks. The others, along with potentially hundreds or thousands of injured, are likely to be innocent bystanders in what certainly looks like an attack meant to sow fear across not just groups of combatants but the country’s entire populace — something one would generally call terrorism.

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Though it has not officially claimed blame/credit, it is widely assumed that Israel is responsible for the now two-day attack. The country’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said in a video that Israel’s military “center of gravity” was now “moving north.” Gallant also praised the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad’s “great achievements” without mentioning Lebanon by name.

The new explosions even targeted a funeral caused by yesterday’s explosions. Thousands had gathered on Wednesday to mourn members of Hezbollah as well as a paramedic and a child who had died on Tuesday, when a blast sent the crowd into a panic. According to various reports, people frantically tried to turn off or throw away their phones, or remove the batteries, for fear that their devices might be next. If Israel somehow managed to smuggle small amounts of explosive into hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies, why not the phone in your pocket? Or your laptop? Or some other device?

[Update: Reporting now suggests Israel was involved in manufacturing the explosive devices from the start, rather than intercepting them before delivery to their users.]

The utter disregard Israel has shown for Palestinian lives in its almost year-old campaign against Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 attack is, if they are indeed responsible, again on full display with the device explosions — with so many targeted, and no way to know exactly where they are or who is nearby, the only available conclusion is that the attackers simply didn’t care who else they hit.