STORY: 8 killed, over 2,800 wounded in pager explosions in Lebanon
SHOOTING TIME: Sept. 17, 2024
DATELINE: Sept. 18, 2024
LENGTH: 00:04:28
LOCATION: Beirut
CATEGORY: SOCIETY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the injured people in a hospital
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (Arabic): KHALED HAMADEH, Retired Brigadier General
3. various of the street view
4. SOUNDBITE 2 (Arabic): KHALED HAMADEH, Retired Brigadier General
5. various of the damage in a room due to an exploding pager
6. various of the Cabinet extraordinary meeting
7. SOUNDBITE 3 (Arabic): FIRAS ABIAD, Lebanese Health Minister
8. various of ambulance cars

STORYLINE:

Eight people were killed, and over 2,800 others, including Hezbollah members, were wounded on Tuesday in different areas of Lebanon as their pagers exploded, said Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad.

Elnashra news website reported that the son of Hezbollah parliamentarian Ali Ammar was among those killed, and Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was among the injured.

Israeli military targeted the batteries of these pagers, leading to their explosions, said the report, adding the injured were being transferred to hospitals.

In a statement, Hezbollah said it is conducting security and scientific investigations to identify the reasons behind these explosions, adding that the group is "at the highest level of readiness to defend Lebanon and its people."

In a separate statement, the Shiite group blamed Israel for "this criminal attack," vowing to retaliate.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Arabic): KHALED HAMADEH, Retired Brigadier General
"What happened today was disabling the communications system that Hezbollah opted to use instead of the mobile phones. We know that Hezbollah stopped using mobile phones after Israel was able to target the party's leaders and members as Israel managed to breach the system. The pagers, it seems that, as they say in Beirut, were bought recently by Hezbollah and distributed among hundreds of the party's members, and today simultaneously all these pagers were detonated at the same time. This could be that the source that provided Hezbollah with these pagers was breached by Israel who knew about these pagers and an electric wave had been sent to the wave band of the pagers which led to exploding them"

SOUNDBITE 2 (Arabic): KHALED HAMADEH, Retired Brigadier General
"A clear message was sent that Israel had managed to disable the alternative communications system of Hezbollah, and that due to the high number of injured, a large part of Hezbollah members had been hit and put out of service in the ongoing war. And it should be noted that even if the USA is not approving a military Israeli campaign against Hezbollah, Netanyahu opted to hit the party in a different manner."

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the mobilization of all departments of the Public Health Ministry to follow up on medical care for the wounded.

The ministry's Emergency Operations Center issued an urgent statement requesting all hospitals across Lebanon to be on high alert and enhance preparedness to meet the massive need for emergency health services.

The ministry also asked all citizens to discard their pager devices immediately over safety concerns.

After the extraordinary Cabinet meeting, Abiad reported to the public on the casualties caused by the incident.

SOUNDBITE 3 (Arabic): FIRAS ABIAD, Lebanese Health Minister
"The reason for this meeting was the exploding pagers. The number of injured citizens admitted to the emergency rooms was huge. The injured citizens were admitted in all Beirut hospitals, but also in South Lebanon we had injured citizens admitted to hospitals in the south, particularly in Tyre and in the Bekaa region. Up until now, the operation room in the Health Ministry has recorded that more than 2,800 injured citizens have been admitted in emergency rooms, 200 of them being critical cases requiring to undergo immediate operations or to be admitted in intensive care units. And there have been a number of fatalities, which currently stand at eight including a child of 10 years old in the Bekaa region."

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Council of Ministers stressed that the government, shortly after the deadly explosions, began contacting the concerned countries and the United Nations to hold the perpetrators accountable.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Beirut.
(XHTV)