Thousands injured, several dead after pager explosion in Lebanon: health services

At least nine civilians were killed and more than 2,750 injured when pagers belonging to a large number of members of various Hezbollah units and institutions exploded, Lebanese officials and the Hezbollah organization reported.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attack and promised to respond. The apparent attack came amid rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also targeted civilians and resulted in the deaths of many martyrs and the injury of a large number of people with various wounds,” Hezbollah said in a statement. “This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression, whether it expects it or not.”

The dead and wounded included non-Hezbollah members, such as a 10-year-old girl killed in the eastern village of Saraain, according to Hezbollah-linked Al-Ahed News. Hezbollah said 11 of its members were killed Tuesday, although, as is typical in its statements, it did not specify how they died.

“These explosions, the causes of which are still unknown, led to the martyrdom of a girl and two brothers and the wounding of a large number of people with various injuries,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

MORE: Israeli Defense Officials Disagree With Netanyahu On Ceasefire Terms For Hamas, Hezbollah

About 200 of the injuries are critical, meaning they required surgery, according to Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry. Most of the injuries were to the face, hands or abdomen, officials said.

Iranian state television said one of the people with the pagers was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, who was injured in an explosion on Tuesday.

According to Iranian state television, Amani said in a telephone conversation after the incident that he “feels fine and is fully conscious.”

At least 14 people have been injured in targeted attacks on Hezbollah members in Syria, according to the Syrian Foreign Ministry.

The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriation condemned the alleged Israeli attack and began preparing a complaint to the Security Council.

The Lebanese Council of Ministers collectively condemned “this criminal Israeli aggression, which constitutes a grave violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and a crime by any standard,” adding that “the government immediately initiated all necessary contacts with the countries concerned and the United Nations to hold him accountable for this ongoing crime.”

The UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon condemned the attack on Lebanon, calling it “an extremely worrying escalation in an already volatile situation” in a statement issued by the Office of the Spokesperson of the UN Secretary-General.

Hezbollah said it was conducting “a scientific and security investigation to determine the causes that led to these simultaneous explosions.”

Tuesday’s incidents in Lebanon also sparked high-level contacts between the U.S. and Israel, a U.S. official said.

The United States has said it played no role in the alleged attack on Hezbollah and issued no warning that it would happen, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. He also declined to provide an assessment of who might be behind it, saying only that the administration was “gathering information” on the incident.

Miller did not say whether the administration had any information that would refute Hezbollah’s claim that Israel was behind the explosions, saying only that he did not want to make an assessment “one way or the other.” The Israeli government has declined to comment on the matter.

The White House said it had no advance knowledge of the planned attack and would not speculate on those behind it, according to press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

The attack came as U.S. diplomats were working furiously to avoid escalation on Israel’s northern border and amid fears that a full-blown war between the country and Hezbollah, which possesses a vast arsenal of missiles, could engulf the region. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, coincidentally, is en route to the region and is scheduled to land in Egypt on Tuesday evening.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke again on Tuesday after speaking on Monday.

The latest call was intended to “address ongoing tensions in the Middle East and threats facing Israel, including the Houthi missile attack over the weekend,” said Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.

Ryder said America’s goal is to prevent tensions in the region from escalating.

“We strongly believe that the way to reduce tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border is diplomacy,” he said.

MORE: What is Hezbollah? The Lebanese militant group has long been one of Israel’s greatest enemies

Iran and Hezbollah are likely to respond with an attack, but it could take them some time as they assess what happened, according to a U.S. official.

The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health issued a statement on Tuesday ordering all hospitals in different regions of Lebanon to maintain maximum readiness and increase their level of preparedness in order to meet the rapid demand for emergency medical services.

The ministry noted that initial information indicates that “the injuries were related to the explosion of wireless devices that were in the possession of the injured.”

The ministry also asked all citizens who have pagers to throw them away immediately.

The Lebanese Red Cross said it had sent “more than 30 ambulances” to help treat and evacuate “those injured in the multiple explosions in the south, Bekaa and southern suburbs of Beirut,” according to a post on the organization’s official account.

The group also added that “50 more ambulances and 300 emergency medical technicians are on standby to help evacuate victims.”

About 100 hospitals have taken in the injured, Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry said. The agency said hospitals in Beirut and its southern suburbs were full and it had begun referring patients to hospitals outside the region.

Schools across Lebanon will be closed on Wednesday, Lebanese state media reported, citing the country’s education minister. The schools and offices closed include public and private schools, secondary schools, technical institutes, the Lebanese University and private higher education institutions, Lebanese state media reported.

Back in February, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged members to stop using cellphones, saying: “I call on you to give up cellphones at this stage because they are considered a lethal weapon.”

ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

Thousands injured, several dead after Lebanon pager blast: health officials originally published on abcnews.go.com