20 more dead and 450 injured in new wave of explosions in Lebanon: health officials

LONDON– At least 20 more people were killed and 450 injured in Lebanon on Wednesday after a series of new explosions from mobile phones rocked the south, the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to the Health Ministry and the Lebanese Red Cross.

The group confirmed that ten Hezbollah members were among those killed on Wednesday.

More than 30 ambulances are treating and evacuating the injured in Lebanon on Wednesday, the Lebanese Red Cross said. At least 95 people injured in Wednesday’s explosions have been taken to Iran for medical treatment, according to Lebanese rescue workers.

The Lebanese army command has asked the population not to gather in places where security incidents are occurring so that medical teams can arrive.

Officials said members of Lebanon’s civil defense were working to extinguish fires that broke out in homes, cars and shops in the Bekaa Valley, the south, Mount Lebanon and the southern suburbs as a result of the explosions.

When it became known that the devices had exploded, all walkie-talkies were confiscated from security staff at Beirut’s Rafiq Harir International Airport.

On Tuesday, pager radio frequencies exploded across Lebanon

According to Lebanese authorities, at least 12 civilians were killed and at least 2,800 people were injured in Tuesday’s explosions. Around 460 of the injuries were critical and required surgery, said Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad. Most of the victims had eye and facial injuries, while others suffered injuries to their hands and fingers, he said.

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

According to a source familiar with the attacks, each of the pagers that exploded on Tuesday contained about 28 to 60 grams of explosives.

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. Lebanese officials said the dead included an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy.

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

Israel has not commented on the explosions

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.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was one of those who owned one of these pagers and was injured in an explosion on Tuesday, according to Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.

In a telephone call, the diplomat said, according to Iranian state television, that he felt “well and was fully conscious.”

“I am proud and honored that my blood has been united with the blood of the honorable Lebanese people as a result of the terrible terrorist crime that struck our brotherly Lebanon yesterday. This noble country has stood with dignity and pride since the first day of the storming of Al-Aqsa,” Amani said on Wednesday.

Iranian UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani described the alleged Israeli attack as an act of “terrorist nature aimed at escalating tensions in the region.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will duly pursue the attack on its ambassador to Lebanon that resulted in his injury and reserves the right under international law to take such necessary measures as may be deemed necessary in response to such a heinous crime and violation,” the ambassador wrote in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN Security Council and the President of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, urging them to condemn the attack.

Fear of an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah grows

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 were closed across Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanese state media reported, citing the country’s education minister. The closed schools and offices included 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.”

Global response to pager attacks

The UN 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.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press conference in Egypt on Wednesday that the United States “had no knowledge of, nor was it involved in, Israel’s pager attacks in Lebanon and Syria,” but added that officials were still gathering intelligence and did not directly blame Israel.

“By and large, we have been very clear and continue to be very clear about the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could further escalate the conflict we are trying to resolve in Gaza,” Blinken said. Expanding the conflict to other fronts, he added, was “obviously not in the interest of all parties involved.”

A ceasefire agreement in Gaza, Blinken added, would “significantly improve the prospects for defusing the situation” on the Israeli-Lebanese border and allow thousands of people living near the area on both sides of the border to return to their homes.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also told reporters that the United States was “in no way” involved in the incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“We still do not want any kind of escalation,” he said. “We still believe that diplomacy is the best way to prevent escalation and prevent the emergence of another front in Lebanon.”

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

ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston, Ghazi Balkiz, Morgan Winsor, Anne Flaherty, Nasser Atta, Joe Simonetti, Jordana Miller and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.