Electronic devices detonated across southern Lebanon and in Beirut’s southern suburbs for the second day in a row on Sept. 18, according to Lebanese officials and witnesses who spoke with Reuters.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least 14 people were killed and more than 450 were injured in the second wave of explosions.
Several of the Wednesday blasts were reported at funerals organized for those killed in a wave of exploding handheld electronic pagers the day prior. The Wednesday funerals processions were being held for slain members of Hezbollah; an Iranian-aligned Shia Islamist Lebanese faction designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel. The funeral processions were also reportedly being held on behalf of a young girl and a young boy who were caught up in the wave of pager blasts.
Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV reported explosions in multiple areas of Lebanon, which it said were caused by detonating walkie-talkies.
Local reports indicated at least one car and a mobile phone shop were also damaged after devices exploded inside of them on Wednesday. A woman was also reportedly hurt when a home solar energy system blew up in southern Lebanon.
The Epoch Times has not been able to independently corroborate these claims.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said 12 people were killed and around 3,000 were wounded in the Tuesday pager blasts.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported most people injured in the mass pager explosions sustained injuries to their hands.
Among those reported killed on Sept. 17 was Mahdi Ammar, the son of a Hezbollah-affiliated member of the Lebanese Parliament named Ali Ammar.
On Sept. 17, the Taiwanese pager manufacturer whose branding appeared on the remnants of beepers that exploded in Lebanon claimed that they were manufactured by another company in Hungary.
The model of pagers used in the detonations in Lebanon was made by Budapest-based BAC Consulting, the Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo said.
The firm added that it had only licensed its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices.
The Epoch Times has reached out to BAC Consulting for comment.
Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the wave of exploding electronic devices over the past two days, but Israeli officials have not yet publicly commented on the matter.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a former military intelligence official and now research director at the Israel Defense and Security Forum, told Reuters there was no confirmation that the military intelligence unit Mossad was involved in the attack.
While not mentioning the string of exploding personal electronics in Lebanon, Israeli leaders have indicated they’re shifting their attention to the north, where their forces have been fighting a cross-border battle with Hezbollah since October 2023.
This cross-border skirmish has forced many residents of northern Israel to evacuate to safety, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in a Sept. 18 statement that his government “will return the residents of the north securely to their homes.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant similarly indicated that the Israeli military is diverting more of its resources north, for a “new phase” of war.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, said on Sept. 18 that Israel’s military has “many capabilities” that it has not yet activated.
“The rule is that every time we work on a certain stage, the next two stages are already ready to advance,” Halevi said. “At each stage, the price for Hezbollah must be high.”
For now, exactly how and why the pagers and other personal electronics have been exploding across Lebanon remains a point of speculation.
The two main theories initially put forward by analysts were that threat actors exploited a flaw in the batteries for the pagers, or that they planted and then triggered explosive charges added to these devices.
As more evidence emerges, the explosive theory has gained traction. The theory suggests that threat actors infiltrated the supply chain for these pagers and inserted small amounts of high explosives inside them before they were delivered to their end users and that the actors then triggered these explosive charges with a coded message.
Carlos Perez, director of security intelligence at TrustedSec, said, “The battery was probably half explosive and half actual battery.”
Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert, said, “Looking at the video, the size of the detonation is similar to that caused by an electric detonator alone or one that incorporates an extremely small high-explosive charge.”
Commenting on a video of the damage caused by one pager explosion, former CIA analyst Mike Dimino of the US-based Defense Priorities think tank wrote on social media platform X: “This was a small plastic explosive charge made to fit into one of the pager components. A battery isn’t doing this.”
Hezbollah has been turning to alternative communications technology over safety concerns with mobile phones.
In February, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned his people not to carry mobile phones, saying they could be used by Israel to target them with drone strikes.
About 170 Hezbollah terrorists had been killed in targeted Israeli strikes, including one senior commander and a top Hamas official in Beirut, when the decision was made to switch to pagers.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times