AA / Beirut / Wassim Saifeddine
The death toll from pager explosions in Lebanon on Tuesday has risen to 12, including two children, Health Minister Firas Alabiad said on Wednesday.
“The number of injured is between 2,750 and 2,800, of whom around 300 are in critical condition,” Alabiad added at a press conference in Beirut.
The health minister said at least 460 surgeries had been performed on victims of the blasts, “mostly for facial and eye injuries, and others for the amputation of limbs.”
“Some 15 tons of medical aid have arrived from Iraq, while communication channels have been established regarding all matters related to assistance, including with Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, as well as other countries,” Alabiad said.
On Tuesday, pagers, wireless telecommunications devices, exploded in several regions of Lebanon, including in the capital Beirut, in what local media said was due to an Israeli intrusion into the system.
The Lebanese group Hezbollah confirmed that at least two of its members were killed and many others injured in the explosions and held Israel fully responsible for the incident.
The beeper blasts came amid a border escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, which have been engaged in a cross-border war since Tel Aviv launched a deadly war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 last year, which has left more than 41,200 people dead, mostly women and children.
*Translated from English by Mourad Belhaj
Only a part of the dispatches, which Anadolu Agency distributes to its subscribers via the Internal Dissemination System (HAS), is published on the AA website, in a summarized form. Please contact us to subscribe.
