About 500 members of the Hezbollah group have lost their sight after the simultaneous explosion of thousands of radio links ("pagers", mini-mobile type), which they used to communicate. At least 9 people were killed and 2,800 people were injured in explosions that occurred simultaneously in southern Beirut and several other areas of Lebanon on Tuesday afternoon (17 September). Iran's ambassador to Lebanon was among 2,800 other people who were injured.
The Hezbollah group blamed Israel for what it called "criminal aggression" and vowed to retaliate. The Israeli military declined to comment.
In its latest statement on Wednesday, Hezbollah said it would continue "operations in support of Gaza", adding that it was "a continuous path apart from the heavy price that awaits the enemy in response to its massacre on Tuesday ".
The Hezbollah cell had recently been supplied with communication devices and it is suspected that Israeli secret services had tampered with them, placing inside each a quantity of explosives, which they then simultaneously activated via a code. Every member of the Lebanese Hezbollah group uses this type of device to receive messages from superiors or family members.
According to the media, one of the hypotheses may be that the Israeli Secret Services may have captured a stock of these devices intended for Hezbollah and may have hidden explosives inside them, so that they could remotely control the explosion. The Lebanese group may have provided its members with the devices as a means of avoiding telephone communications, which are easily intercepted, and thus unwittingly cooperated with the Israeli plan.