Nine people were killed and nearly 2,800 others injured in the explosion on Tuesday of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members in Lebanon, according to a new report from the Health Ministry.
Among the dead were the sons of two Hezbollah MPs, Ali Ammar and Hassan Fadlallah, a Source close to Hezbollah told AFP.
A 10-year-old girl was also killed in eastern Lebanon when her father’s pager exploded, according to her family and a Source close to Hezbollah.
The son of a senior Hezbollah security official was also injured, according to a Source close to Hezbollah.
Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, was also injured in the pager explosion, according to Iranian state television.
Pagers, a radio messaging system, exploded simultaneously in several Lebanese regions where the pro-Iranian group is based.
An initial report from the Ministry of Health indicated eight deaths and nearly 2,750 injured.
According to Health Minister Firass Abiad, most of the victims were injured “in the face, hand, stomach and even eyes.”
Fourteen Hezbollah members in Syria were also injured by the explosion of their pagers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
The Lebanese Islamist movement claimed that Israel was “entirely responsible” for these simultaneous explosions and assured that it would “receive its just punishment” following “this criminal aggression”.
Israel has not commented on the explosions.
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