An attack of unprecedented sophistication, attributed to Israel, plunged Lebanon into chaos and panic on Tuesday 17 September. At 3.30pm, the pagers of hundreds of people shopping, sitting in a café or riding scooters exploded after receiving, according to witnesses, a message. For several hours, a ballet of ambulances transported the wounded from Hezbollah strongholds to submerged hospitals in Beirut, the south of the country and the Bekaa plain. Victims had their hands mangled, some disfigured, others wounded in the groin or leg.
“At around 3:30 p.m., several pagers rang among employees of different Hezbollah units and institutions.” The Lebanese Shiite party said in a press release. One of the party’s leaders, quoted by Reuters, acknowledged the “The biggest security breach” that the movement has known. According to a provisional report by the Lebanese Ministry of Health, nine people were killed and nearly 2,800 were injured, 200 of them in critical condition. Israel is “totally responsible” of these explosions and will receive a “just punishment”threatened the Party of God, while the Jewish state declined to comment. Lebanese authorities denounced a “violation of Lebanese security and sovereignty”.
Among the victims are an 8-year-old girl, killed by the explosion of her father’s pager, and a son of Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar. Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was killed “superficially wounded” in the explosion on his search engine, according to a press release from the embassy. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also counted at least fourteen wounded in Syria.
“This is a huge security gap. If you estimate that Hezbollah’s military wing has between 10,000 and 20,000 active members, that means at least 20% of them are wounded, which is huge. That is the number of casualties that occur in a war, not in a single attack.”“The identities of hundreds of Hezbollah fighters, closely guarded by the Shiite party, have been exposed,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, a Hezbollah specialist at the Carnegie think tank in Beirut. “This precise and extensive attack succeeds in breaking the ranks of the organization, touching the hearts of every family. This is a major failure that undermines the security, confidence and stability of the group, but I am surprised that it was not followed by an operation against Hezbollah.”continues the Lebanese expert.
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