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>> Mr. Guterres said: “deeply concerned“by the exchanges of fire on the Israel-Lebanon border
| Ambulances surrounded by crowds at the entrance to the American University of Beirut, September 17, 2024. |
| Photo: AFP/VNA/CVN |
The hundreds of simultaneous explosions of these messaging devices on Tuesday afternoon, September 17, in several Hezbollah strongholds, caused scenes of chaos across Lebanon.
“I have never seen anything like this in my life.” said Moussa, a resident of the southern suburbs, who asked to be identified only by his first name.
“My wife and I were going to the doctor, and it just blew up (…) I found people lying on the ground in front of me” he says. “People didn’t know what was happening“.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said nine people were killed and some 2,800 others wounded. Hezbollah accused Israel of being “fully responsible” explosions.
Cared for in a parking lot
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| Medics collect blood bags in the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 17, 2024, after the deadly beeper explosions of Hezbollah members. |
| Photo: AFP/VNA/CVN |
In a hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut, an AFP correspondent saw wounded people being treated in a parking lot, on mattresses laid on the floor and stretchers covered in blood.
Outside another hospital, an injured person is being treated in a car. Inside the facility, an AFP correspondent saw a man injured in the face, eye and hand, and another in the hip.
Images of bloodied people, some with missing fingers, were circulating on social media.
In tents hastily set up under a bridge in Beirut’s southern suburbs, hundreds of people gathered to donate blood, amid the sirens of ambulances.
A witness said he saw a Hezbollah member he knew receiving messages on his pager before the device exploded.
Elsewhere in the commercial district of Hamra, dozens of people gathered outside the entrance to one of the capital’s main hospitals, amid the constant coming and going of ambulances.
Outside the emergency department of the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), men and women, some in black chadors, try to get news of the injured in an atmosphere of chaos.
Cries of anger
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| Blood donor in the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 17, 2024, after Hezbollah operatives’ beeper explosions wreaked havoc across Lebanon. |
| Photo: AFP/VNA/CVN |
Some are crying, others are screaming in anger. A person on the phone informs a woman that a relative of hers has lost a hand and is injured in the hip.
Sirens sound throughout the city as ambulances arrive one after another, from the Civil Defense and the Lebanese Red Cross, but also from other emergency services, including rescuers affiliated with the Amal movement, an ally of Hezbollah.
Soldiers and civilians try to ease the passage of vehicles, while rescue workers in fluorescent vests guide ambulances through the congested streets of the capital.
In southern Lebanon, an AFP correspondent saw dozens of ambulances traveling between the cities of Tyre and Saida in both directions, with hospitals in both cities overwhelmed.
An AFP correspondent in eastern Lebanon said a large number of people had been injured in similar incidents in the Bekaa Valley.
AFP/VNA/CVN
