12 killed, 4,000 injured…

A sales executive at the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese walkie-talkie maker Icom told The Associated Press that the exploded radio devices in Lebanon appear to be a knockoff product and not made by Icom.

“I can guarantee you they were not our products,” said Ray Novak, a senior sales manager for Icom America’s amateur radio division, in an interview Wednesday at a trade show in Providence, Rhode Island.

Novak said Icom introduced the V82 two-way radio model more than two decades ago and it has long since been discontinued. It was favored by amateur radio operators and for use in social or emergency communications, including by people tracking tornadoes or hurricanes, he said.

Novak said he spent all day fielding calls and trying to dispel misinformation about Icom’s discontinued device. He showed a reporter on his cellphone how easy it is to find counterfeit versions of the product sold online.

Lt. Gen. Derek France, the head of U.S. air power in the Middle East, had been scheduled to talk to reporters at a conference in Maryland on Wednesday but canceled to more closely monitor the situation after the pager attack, a military official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing situation.

The official said the attack has prompted the Air Force to reexamine how U.S. forces are positioned in the region in case of retaliation.

It comes after the Navy pulled one of its aircraft carriers out of the region last week following the Pentagon’s decision to keep two carriers in the Middle East for a short time recently.

The Biden administration beefed up the U.S. military presence there to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies and to safeguard U.S. troops. The U.S. has tens of thousands of service members, additional ships and aircraft squadrons based throughout the Middle East to try to keep the conflict from spreading into a wider regional war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has released a short video statement after the latest round of explosions in Lebanon.

“I have already said we will return the residents of the north safely to their homes,” he said. “And that is exactly what we will do.”

Asked about Tuesday’s pager explosions, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it especially serious not only because of the large number of victims “but because of the indications that exist that this was triggered — I would say, in advance of the normal way to trigger these things — because there was a risk of this being discovered.”

“Obviously the logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a preemptive strike before a major military operation,” the U.N. chief said. “So as important as the event in itself, is the indication that this event confirms that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon.”

“Everything must be done to avoid that escalation,” Guterres said.

Guterres made the comments prior to finding out about Wednesday’s explosions involving walkie-talkies.

Israel’s army chief says Israel has drawn up plans for additional action against Hezbollah and is ready to strike.

“We have many capabilities that we have not yet activated,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said after approving new operational plans at Israel’s Northern Command on Wednesday.

“Every time we work at a certain stage, the next two stages are ready to go forward strongly,” he says. “At each stage, the price for Hezbollah needs to be high.”

Israel’s defense minister has declared the start of a “new phase” of the war as Israel turns its focus toward the northern front against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Yoav Gallant made no mention of the mysterious explosions of electronic devices in Lebanon in recent days. But he praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying “the results are very impressive.”

He said that after months of war against Hamas militants in Gaza, “the center of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces.”

“We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance,” he said.

Lebanon’s health ministry says one person was killed and over 100 were wounded by exploding electronic devices in the country on Wednesday.

The blasts followed on the heels of multiple exploding pagers used by Hezbollah the previous day, killing at least 12 people and wounding some 2,800.

A Hezbollah official says walkie-talkies used by the group exploded as part of blasts heard in Beirut Wednesday.

The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Meanwhile Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that three people were killed by unspecified devices exploding in the town of Sohmor in the Beqaa valley on Wednesday.

It also reported that solar energy systems exploded in homes in several areas, injuring a girl.

Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV has reported explosions in multiple areas of Lebanon on Wednesday, which it said were the result of walkie-talkies detonating.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported several explosions of old “pager devices” elsewhere in Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the eastern city of Baalbek, which took place during several funeral processions for Hezbollah members.

In Baalbek, several wounded were rushed to the hospital, while one device in a Beirut southern suburb exploded inside an apartment.

Large plumes of smoke can be seen from the building in a photo circulated by the NNA.

The Lebanese military urged people not to gather in areas where the incidents are taking place as medical teams try to reach the area.

Associated Press journalists at the scene of a Beirut funeral for four people killed by exploding pagers the previous day have reported hearing multiple explosions at the site.

The journalists reported seeing ambulances arriving at the scene. The nature of the explosions and whether anyone was injured was not immediately clear.

The U.N. human rights chief is calling for an independent investigation into mass explosions from detonating pagers in Lebanon and Syria.

Volker Türk said in a statement Wednesday that “the fear and terror unleashed is profound” and urged world leaders to step up “in defense of the rights of all people to live in peace and security.”

Türk said the targeting of thousands of people — whether civilians or members of armed groups — without knowledge of who held the devices or where they were, violates international law.

The statement made no reference to who might be responsible for Tuesday’s explosions.

“The protection of civilians must be the paramount priority,” he said, alluding to the deadly violence in the Middle East in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. “De-escalation is today more crucial than ever.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. is still assessing the impact that a series of deadly pager blasts linked to Israel in neighboring Lebanon may have on efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and stave off broader regional conflict.

But Blinken, speaking in Egypt, where he traveled for talks, said Tuesday’s attack and other recent surprise attacks threaten to “derail” U.S.-led negotiations.

“Time and again” when the U.S. and other international mediators believe themselves to be making progress in a cease-fire deal for the war in Gaza, “we’ve seen an event that makes the process more difficult, might derail it,” Blinken said, speaking in answer to a question about the explosions in Lebanon.

He cited Hamas’ killing earlier this month of six of the hostages that militants held in tunnels under Gaza.
Negotiators had been making progress on hammering out the details of a swap that would have freed Israeli, American and other hostages held by Hamas in exchange for freeing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention.

A senior doctor has described how a Beirut hospital became flooded with patients minutes after Tuesday’s attack.

Hospital staff didn’t initially know about the explosions until patients rushed in, said Dr. Salah Zeineldine, Chief Medical Officer at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

The hospital was “flooded with around 200 cases” immediately after the incident, he told The Associated Press, adding that 140 of them are still in the hospital.

“The patients who started to arrive were awake and started to speak (about what happened),” Zeineldine said.

The injuries were mostly in the eyes and face, followed by injuries to the fingers, hands, and abdomen, the doctor said.

All 12 of the hospital’s operating rooms continued working nonstop after the explosions, treating many injuries that resulted in amputations and loss of eyes.

“Almost everyone who came in (Tuesday) required a lot of care,” he said.

Authorities have said around 2,800 people were wounded in the attack.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused the U.S. and its allies of being behind the exploding pagers attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.

“Using devices, made for welfare of human beings, as a tool for assassination and annihilation” of those who don’t hold the same views of the U.S., Israel and the West is “an indication of the collapse of humanity as well domination of savagery and barbarism,” the website of the president quoted him as saying Wednesday.

“The incident once again showed that western nations and Americans fully support crime, killings and blind assassinations by the Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian added.

Iran is the chief supporter of Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group that Israel sees it as its most direct threat. Many of the group’s fighters were killed and injured in Tuesday’s explosions.

Iran has already sent a group of Iranian medics to Lebanon to help victims of the explosions.

In the village of Nadi Sheet in the eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, dozens of people gathered Wednesday to mourn the death of Fatima Abdullah, a nine-year-old girl who was among two children killed in the exploding pagers attack.

The circumstances around her death were not immediately established.

Her mother, wearing black and donning a yellow Hezbollah scarf, wept alongside other women and children as they gathered around the little girl’s coffin before her burial.

One girl said Fatima was one of her friends who she spent time with.

“Everyone loved her,” she said, struggling to hold back her tears.

The European Union’s top diplomat has condemned the exploding pager attack for wounding many civilians and expressed concerns about an escalation of conflict in the region.

“Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians, including children among the victims,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement Wednesday after he met with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib for talks.

“I consider this situation extremely worrying. I can only condemn these attacks that endanger the security and stability of Lebanon, and increase the risk of escalation in the region,” Borrell added.

He appealed on behalf of the EU for “all stakeholders to avert an all-out war.”

Lebanon’s health minister says the death toll from the exploding pager attack on Hezbollah has increased to 12 people, including two children and an unspecified number of healthcare workers..

Health Minister Firas Abiad said that two-thirds of the wounded needed hospitalization, adding that the scale of the incident was far greater than the thousands wounded in the massive Beirut Port explosion in 2020. Most of the wounded were in Beirut and its southern suburbs, he said.

Israel’s military says they intercepted two suspicious drones that approached Israel from Lebanon and Iraq on Wednesday morning. That’s just one day after pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding nearly 3,000.

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military said they intercepted a drone launched from Lebanon over the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of northern Israel. Another drone launched from Iraq was intercepted by Israeli air force fighter jets. There were no injuries or damage reported.

Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into Israel on Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged strikes near-daily, killing hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displacing tens of thousands on each side of the border.

A senior researcher at the Tel Aviv think tank Institute for National Security Studies says the pager explosions effectively removed a large number of Hezbollah’s fighters from taking part in active combat while they recover from their injuries.

“This operation was very surprising, very unique, and very complex,” said Sima Shine, who is also a former top official in the Mossad spy agency.

She said it will likely take Hezbollah some time to respond, and in the meantime she expects them to continue launching similar numbers of rockets and drones toward northern Israel, as they have for the past 11 months.

However, Shine said she did not expect Israel to use the operation as a launching point for a wider war against Hezbollah or a possible ground operation, because Israel does not want a widespread regional war at the moment.

Lebanon Health Minister Firass Abiad told journalists during a tour on hospitals Wednesday morning that many of the wounded sustained eye and arm injuries.

Abiad said about 3,000 people were wounded Tuesday. About 200 of them are in intensive care units.

The health minister added that Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt offered to help in treating the patients.

Earlier Wednesday, an Iraqi military plane landed in Beirut carrying 15 tons of medicines and medical equipment, Abiad said.

The Israeli military says four soldiers were killed in southern Gaza and five others were wounded, with three of them in serious condition.

The deaths on Tuesday came nearly a year into the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The army did not describe the circumstances, but Israeli media reported that the soldiers were killed by a hidden bomb that exploded inside a building.

One of the four, Staff Sgt. Agam Naim, an army paramedic, was the first female soldier to have been killed in combat in Gaza, according to Israeli media.

Hamas and other armed groups remain active across the territory despite months of heavy Israeli bombardment and ground operations that have destroyed vast areas and displaced most of the population.

Israel says 346 of its soldiers have been killed since the start of ground operations last October. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

BAC Consulting, alleged to have manufactured the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, is headquartered in a duplex in a residential neighborhood of Hungary’s capital, Budapest.

At the headquarters on Tuesday morning, Associated Press journalists saw the names of multiple companies, including BAC Consulting, posted on pieces of printer paper on the window of the ground-floor property. A woman who emerged from the building, who would not give her name, said the site is used as a domiciliation service which provides headquarters addresses to various companies.

BAC Consulting was registered as an LLC in May 2022 and had $725,768 in revenue in 2022 and $593,972 in 2023. It is registered to Cristiana Rosaria Bársony-Arcidiacono, who on her LinkedIn page describes herself as a strategic advisor and business developer.

Among other positions, Bársony-Arcidiacono claims to serve on the board of directors the Earth Child Institute, a sustainability group. But the group does not list Bársony-Arcidiacono among its board members on its website.

The AP has attempted to reach Bársony-Arcidiacono via her LinkedIn page and has been unable to establish a connection between her or BAC and the exploding pagers.
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This post has been corrected to show BAC’s revenue was $593,972 in 2023 and $725,768 in 2022.

Hezbollah, which blames Israel for the exploding pagers, says it will keep striking Israel “as in all the past days” as part of what it describes as a support front for its ally Hamas, as well as Palestinians in Gaza.

“This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday that it committed against our people, our families and our fighters in Lebanon,” it said in a statement Wednesday morning.

“This is another reckoning that will come, God willing.”

The AR-924 pager, advertised as being “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications once advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was apparently taken down Tuesday after the sabotage attack. It could receive texts of up to 100 characters.

It also claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life. That would be crucial in Lebanon, where electricity outages have been common after years of economic collapse. Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies — one of the reasons why many hospitals worldwide still rely on them.

Pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah that exploded near-simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and Syria were branded by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo.

In a statement Wednesday, the company said the AR-924 pagers were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in Hungary’s capital, Budapest. Gold Apollo said it had a licensing agreement with BAC to lend its brand name, but that BAC was responsible for the design and manufacture of the pagers.

Hamas has issued a statement condemning Tuesday’s pager explosions.

“We appreciate the struggle and sacrifices of our brothers in Hezbollah, and their insistence on continuing to support and back our Palestinian people in Gaza, and we affirm our full solidarity with the Lebanese people and our brothers in Hezbollah,” a statement from Hamas said.

Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into Israel on Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the war in Gaza. Since then, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged strikes near-dail.

The Lebanese militant group has said it is supporting its ally, Hamas, and that it will stop its attacks if a cease-fire is reached in Gaza.

Apparently the pagers first heated up, and then exploded in the pockets, or the hands, of those carrying them Tuesday afternoon, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official.

These pagers run on lithium ion batteries, the official added. And he claims the devices exploded as the result of an Israeli “security operation.”

He gave no evidence, but Israel has a long history of sophisticated operations behind enemy lines.

Experts said the pager explosions point to a sophisticated, long-planned operation, possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the pagers with explosives before they were imported to Lebanon.

▶ Read more about what’s known about the pagers used in Tuesday’s attack

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track the group’s movements for targeted strikes. As a result, the organization uses pagers to communicate.

A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the exploded devices were from a new brand the group had not used before. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, did not identify the brand name or supplier.

▶ Read more about the pagers used in Tuesday’s attack

The Iraqi government and an Iran-backed Iraqi militia are promising to send assistance to Lebanon. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani ordered Iraqi medical and emergency service teams to be sent, his office said in a statement.

The Kataeb Hezbollah militia, one of the most powerful among Iraq’s Iranian-backed armed groups, said in a separate statement that it would “put all our capabilities in the hands of the brothers in Lebanon.”

“We are fully prepared to go with them to the end, and to send fighters, equipment, and support, whether on the technical or logistical level,” it said.

Officials now say at least nine people have been killed when pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria.

An 8-year-old girl is among the dead.

The U.S. says it’s gathering information on the pager explosions in Lebanon and Syria.

“I can tell you that the U.S. was not involved in it,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “The U.S. was not aware of this incident in advance. And at this point, we’re gathering information.”

The son of a member of Hezbollah’s bloc in Lebanon’s parliament was among those killed Tuesday. The sons of two other senior officials were wounded, a Hezbollah official said.

Prominent Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar spoke to The Associated Press after his son, Mahdi, was killed.
“This is a new Israeli aggression against Lebanon,” Ammar said. “The resistance will retaliate in a suitable way at the suitable time.”

A Hezbollah official said the wounded include the son of Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah and the son of senior security official Wafiq Safa. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Iran’s foreign minister has strongly condemned what he and other officials say was an Israeli attack.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reports that Abbas Araghchi made the comments in a phone conversation with his Lebanese counterpart, Abdallah Bou Habib. The explosions occurred in the suburbs of Beirut and in other areas that are strongholds of Iran-backed Hezbollah.

IRNA reported that during the phone call, Araghchi offered condolences and expressed solidarity with the Lebanese government, nation. He also said Iran is ready to provide treatment for the injured people or their transfer to Tehran.

Lebanon’s foreign ministry has condemned what it called and “Israeli cyber attack,” in which hundreds of handheld pagers exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria.

The ministry said in a statement that it is preparing to submit a complaint to the U.N. Security Council.

“This dangerous and deliberate Israeli escalation is accompanied by Israeli threats to expand the scope of the war against Lebanon on a large scale, and by the intransigence of Israeli’s positions calling for more bloodshed, destruction and devastation,” it said.

Hezbollah said in a statement that at 3:30 p.m. (1230 GMT) pagers used by people working for the group’s institutions began exploding “mysteriously,” killing a young girl and two Hezbollah members and wounding several people.

The statement said Hezbollah is carrying out “a security and scientific” investigation into the simultaneous explosions.

Hezbollah called on people not to listen to rumors that are part of “psychological warfare” as Israel threatens to change the facts on the ground along its northern border.

“The resistance, at all its levels, is on high alert to defend Lebanon and its steadfast people,” the statement said.

Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously across Lebanon and in parts of Syria on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, including members of the militant group Hezbollah and a girl, and wounding the Iranian ambassador, government and Hezbollah officials said.

Officials pointed the finger at Israel in what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack that wounded more than 2,700 people at a time of rising tensions across the Lebanon border. The Israeli military declined to comment.

A Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the new brand of handheld pagers used by the group first heated up, then exploded, killing at least two of its members and wounding others.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firas Abiad, said at least eight people were killed and 2,750 wounded — 200 of them critically.

▶ Read more about the pager explosions in Lebanon and Syria