Pager detonations wound thousands, majority Hezbollah members, in suspected cyberattack

As many as 3,600 members of Hezbollah were wounded on Tuesday at around 3:30 p.m. throughout Lebanon, along with additional operatives from the terror group in Syria and Iraq, when the pagers they used to communicate exploded.

Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad added that around 200 were critically wounded and closing in on a dozen had already died.

Iranian ambassador Mojtaba Amani was reportedly injured in the explosion, according to Iranian state-owned Mehr News, and a variety of senior Hezbollah officials and relatives of the group’s parliamentary MPs were also reportedly wounded.

Despite all of those setbacks, Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah is reportedly unharmed or at least still in command, and the group’s public relations arm issued multiple messages blaming and threatening Israel with a powerful counterstrike.

Throughout the later part of the day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were huddled together with other top defense officials evaluating the state of play between the sides.

Likewise, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi held a situation assessment with the IDF high command later in the day on Tuesday.

Around 8:15 p.m., the IDF Home Front Command said that there was no change in defensive guidelines or movement restrictions as of yet, though virtually all Israeli defense officials were expecting a significant response from Hezbollah.

In an initial statement, Hezbollah said, "This afternoon, a number of messaging devices known as “pagers” exploded, which are owned by a number of workers in various Hezbollah units and institutions."

It said that it was carrying out an investigation to determine the causes of the blasts, and many different theories were surfacing.

A senior Lebanese security source told Al-Hadath that Israel infiltrated the communication system of individual devices and detonated them. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now

According to reports, the beepers and communications devices were called before the explosion for some period of seconds to increase the chance that whoever received the call would pick it up and be maximally wounded.

The pagers detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, according to three security sources.

A Hezbollah official cited by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that hundreds of members had such pager devices, and speculated that malware could have caused the device to heat up and explode. The same official cited by the WSJ reported that some people felt the pagers heat up, disposing of them before they exploded.

Additionally, the same report by WSJ quoted Hezbollah officials stating that the number of casualties was rising too quickly to count.

'Biggest security breach,' Hezbollah official says

A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the "biggest security breach" the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.

Another Lebanese security source claimed that Israel hacked into Hezbollah's radio communication system and caused the explosions.

According to Al-Hadath, the IDF remotely detonated the communication devices using advanced technology. However, Israel has not taken responsibility for the explosions.