Sources say Israel is behind pager explosions as Hezbollah announces ‘reckoning’

Israel was behind the deadly pager explosion in Lebanon on Tuesday, sources told ABC News on Wednesday.

According to Lebanese authorities, at least nine civilians were killed and more than 2,750 people were injured in the explosions. Around 200 of the injuries were critical and required surgery, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said.

The militant Hezbollah group said it was conducting a “security and scientific investigation” into Tuesday’s pager explosions across Lebanon.

Hezbollah said 11 of its members were killed on Tuesday, but, as is customary in its statements, did not provide details on the causes of death.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also targeted civilians and resulted in the death of numerous martyrs and the injury of many others with various wounds,” Hezbollah said in a statement on Tuesday about the pager explosions.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, Hezbollah said it would continue its operations in “support of Gaza” and announced a “reckoning” with Israel for “Tuesday’s massacre.”

Among the dead and injured were people who were not members of Hezbollah, such as a 10-year-old girl who was killed in the eastern village of Saraain, the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Ahed News agency reported.

Israel has not commented on its alleged involvement in the attack, which caused chaos in the capital Beirut and elsewhere in Hezbollah’s southern Lebanese heartland.

Around 100 hospitals have admitted injured people, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. The hospitals in Beirut and the southern suburbs were quickly at full capacity. The patients were then transferred to other hospitals outside the region.

Most of the injuries were to the face, hand or stomach, officials said.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those carrying one of the pagers and injured in an explosion on Tuesday, Iranian state television reported. The diplomat said in a phone call that he was “feeling fine and fully conscious,” Iranian state television said.

According to the Syrian Foreign Ministry, at least 14 people were injured in targeted attacks on Hezbollah members in Syria.

The alleged Israeli operation has renewed fears of an escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which has been ongoing since October 8, when members of the Iran-backed group began cross-border attacks in support of Hamas’s war against Israel in the Gaza Strip.

During the eleven-month war in Gaza, there were almost constant border skirmishes, Israeli attacks and rocket and artillery fire from Hezbollah. Israeli politicians repeatedly threatened a new military operation against Hezbollah on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Tens of thousands of Israelis have left their homes in the border regions because of the fighting.

The Israeli military said that fighter jets attacked Hezbollah targets at six locations in southern Lebanon on Wednesday night. Artillery attacks were also carried out, it added.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will give a public speech on Thursday afternoon to comment on the situation. In February, Nasrallah called on his members to stop using their mobile phones, calling the technology a “lethal tool.”

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

The Lebanese Council of Ministers collectively condemned “this criminal Israeli aggression, which constitutes a grave violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by any standard.”

It added that “the government immediately initiated all necessary contacts with the countries concerned and the United Nations to make them aware of their responsibility regarding this ongoing crime.”

The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon condemned the attack on Lebanon, calling it a “highly worrying escalation in an already unacceptably unstable context” in a statement from the UN Office of the Secretary-General’s Spokesperson.

US authorities said Washington, DC, had nothing to do with the alleged attack and had no prior knowledge of it. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the government was “gathering information” on the incident.

Neither Miller nor White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would comment on speculation about Israel’s responsibility.

Both the United States and the European Union have designated the militant Hezbollah group as a foreign terrorist organization.