Thousands have been injured across Lebanon after pagers, commonly used for communication by Hezbollah, exploded almost simultaneously
MEE staff
The details of how this highly sophisticated attack was carried out remain unclear, though Hezbollah has blamed its adversary, Israel. The Israeli military has so far declined to comment.
Here is what we know so far.
When and where did the blasts take place?
The blasts began in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, with scores of incidents reported in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh and other areas of the country at about 3.45pm (12.45pm GMT) on Tuesday.
According to footage seen by Middle East Eye, some of the detonations occurred after the pagers went off, prompting their owners to bring them close to their faces or hands to check the screens.
In one clip, CCTV footage appeared to show an explosion inside a man's satchel as he was buying groceries at a vegetable market.
The blasts were relatively contained, with CCTV footage showing that the explosions primarily injured the person wearing the pager or those in close proximity.
According to the Reuters news agency, the explosions continued for about an hour after the initial blasts.
Soon after, scores of people began arriving at hospitals, with videos shared on social media showing individuals suffering from facial injuries, missing fingers and gaping wounds near the hips where the pagers were likely worn.
Lebanon's health ministry placed hospitals across the country on "maximum alert" and instructed citizens to distance themselves from wireless communication devices.
How did the pagers explode?
Multiple theories have emerged about how the attacks were carried out.
Some analysts speculate that explosives were somehow planted inside the devices.
The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosives in a batch of pagers ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo and destined for Hezbollah, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation.
A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages.
According to the Times report, a remote detonation switch was embedded in the pagers.
Israeli intelligence forces have previously placed explosives in personal phones to target enemies, as detailed in Ronen Bergman's 2018 book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations.
Citing a senior Lebanese security source, Reuters reported that Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency had planted explosives inside the pagers months before Tuesday's detonations.
The senior security source said Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 beepers made by Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, which several sources say were brought into Lebanon in the spring.
The source said Israel's spy service had modified the devices "at the production level".
While supply chain attacks are a growing concern in the cybersecurity world, they normally target software. Hardware supply chain attacks, like this one, are much rarer, as they usually require physical access to the devices.
"The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material... It's very hard to detect it through any means, even with any device or scanner," the source told Reuters.
The source explained that 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
However, Gold Apollo's founder said the company did not manufacture the pagers used in the explosions. Instead, they were produced by Hungary-based BAC Consulting, which held the rights to use the Taiwanese firm’s brand.
Other analysts have suggested a hack may have caused the pager batteries to overheat, leading to the explosions.
A Hezbollah official told the Wall Street Journal that the affected pagers were part of a new shipment that the group had recently received and malware might have caused them to overheat and explode.
Some people felt their pagers heating up and threw them away before they detonated, the official added.
Mustafa Asaad, a military analyst, described the attack as "groundbreaking" and suggested it was carried out using "state-of-the-art" technology.
He told MEE that Israel appeared to have broken into Hezbollah's "command and communications networks, identified operatives one by one, analysed their movements and then directed a form of kinetic attack over the entire broadband".
Asaad was sceptical that the pagers were booby-trapped, saying such a scheme would be too simple and easily detected upon delivery.
Why does Hezbollah use pagers?
Hezbollah has long touted secrecy as a cornerstone of its military strategy and has relied on pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location tracking.
Mobile phones were abandoned and deemed too vulnerable after Israel's assassination of Hamas official Yahya Ayyash in 1996, when his phone exploded in his hand.
Earlier this year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged members and their families in southern Lebanon, where fighting with Israeli forces across the border has intensified, to get rid of their mobile phones, fearing Israel could use them to track fighters' movements.
"Shut it off, bury it, put it in an iron chest and lock it up," Nasrallah said in a speech in February.
"The collaborator [with the Israelis] is the mobile phone in your hands and those of your wives and your children. This mobile phone is the collaborator and the killer."
What do we know about the victims?
A source close to Hezbollah told the AFP news agency that two of those killed were the sons of Hezbollah members of parliament, and the daughter of another Hezbollah member was also killed.
According to Reuters, Nasrallah was not hurt, though Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among the wounded. Iranian media reported that his injuries were minor.
Syrian and Iranian media reported that Hezbollah members were also wounded and transported to hospitals in Syria, where they have been supporting Bashar al-Assad's government since the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.
Outside Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) in southern Beirut, medical staff set up emergency beds outside the entrance to receive the wounded as quickly as possible.
"I am still trying to understand what happened. I am just waiting for my husband to get out of the emergency room," a woman outside Hotel-Dieu de France hospital, who asked to remain anonymous, told MEE.
Members of the public gathered at hospitals, responding to calls for blood donations. However, onlookers were reprimanded for taking photographs of the wounded Hezbollah members.
Who is responsible for the explosions?
So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but both Lebanon's prime minister and Hezbollah have blamed Israel.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the explosions represented a "serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards".
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it held Israel "fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians".
"This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression, whether it expects it or not," the group added.
According to Axios, several minutes before the pagers began exploding, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and told him Israel was about to conduct an operation in Lebanon soon.
A US official told Axios that while Israel did not provide specific details of the operation, Gallant’s call was an attempt to avoid keeping the US totally in the dark.
What have the reactions been?
Tuesday's pager blasts occurred just hours after Israel's security cabinet officially made the safe return of residents to the north of the country a key war goal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also told a visiting US official that Israel would "do what is necessary to ensure its security".
His comments came hours after Israel's Shin Bet internal security service said it had thwarted a Hezbollah plot to kill a former Israeli defence official using a remotely detonated explosive.
Since the 7 October Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and the subsequent war on Gaza, Hezbollah and the Israeli military have regularly exchanged fire. The fighting has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese, mostly Hezbollah fighters, and dozens of Israelis.
Hezbollah, which is the strongest non-state military power in the world, has said it is attacking Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The Lebanese movement said it will stop its attacks if the Israeli government agrees to a ceasefire with Hamas.
Following Tuesday's events, the US government said it "was not aware of this incident in advance".
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a briefing that Washington was neither involved nor aware of who was responsible for the pager blasts.
However, two US officials told CNN that Gallant spoke twice with Austin in what was described as an unusual occurrence.
Nonetheless, the Pentagon said there was no change in the US military’s posture in the Middle East.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah issued a statement saying that it would continue fighting along the Israeli border, separate from its retaliation for the pager blasts. The group warned that Israel should expect further repercussions for its operation.
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