Plumes of smoke rise over Beirut as Hezbollah walkie talkies explode
This is the chilling moment the Beirut skyline was darkened by plumes of smoke after thousands of Hezbollah walkie talkies exploded simultaneously.
A dramatic time-lapse video of the city showed large clouds of thick, grey smoke appearing in several different locations with at least one of the blasts taking place near a funeral organised by Hezbollah for three fighters and a child killed yesterday.
Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV reported the latest explosions across the city were the deadly result of the hand-held radios detonating – an incident which has killed nine and injured more than 300, including mourners at today’s funeral.
Sources told Lebanese news outlet L’Orient Today that devices were set off inside cars, residential apartments and shops. Motorbike radios and security locks also blew up across Lebanon.
Many of the wound’s suffered in Wednesday’s blasts were to the stomach and hands, it was reported.
A dramatic time-lapse video captured the moment multiple Hezbollah walkie talkies detonated simultaneously across Beirut
Plumes of smoke filled the skyline in an incident which has killed nine and injured hundreds of others
At least one of the blasts heard took place near a funeral organised by Hezbollah for three fighters and a child killed yesterday
It comes just a day after thousands of pagers used by the Iran-backed military group blew up, leaving almost 3,000 people injured and a dozen dead, including civilians and children.
Security sources have now confirmed that hand-held radios in Wednesday’s explosions were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, at around the same time as the compromised pagers. Lebanese media has also reported that home solar energy systems have blown up in several areas of Beirut.
The pagers also detonated simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday afternoon.
A Lebanese security source claimed Israel’s spy agency Mossad planted explosives in thousands of the devices months before they exploded.
Sources also revealed to Axios that the booby-trapped devices were intended to be used as a surprise opening blow of an all-out war with Hezbollah before the sabotage operation was fast-tracked due to concerns of it being uncovered.
Hezbollah has since vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military has not yet made any public comment regarding the blasts.
A Sky News correspondent at the scene of the Hezbollah-organised funeral said that immediate panic broke out among the mourners after the first detonation was heard.
Alex Crawford said: ‘We came out to try and found out what the sound was and people were running. People were covered in blood.
‘There was blood on a car.
‘One young man was running and he was very stressed. He said a walkie-talkie – which the Hezbollah security people around here are using for the funeral – exploded.
‘The Hezbollah people then gathered up all the walkie-talkies and have been taking the batteries out of them.’
According to a report from The Telegraph, Beirut’s hospitals were already worryingly at full capacity before the new wave of explosions.
All 12 operating theatres at the American University of Beirut Medical Center were running at full capacity, with several of those injured in yesterday’s pager attacks still waiting to undergo surgery.
The centre saw some 190 victims pouring through its doors with severe face and eye injuries as exhausted medics struggled to deal with the influx.
A picture circulating online appears to show one of the radio devices after it detonated
Flames rise up a building in Lebanon amid the explosions
Local media has reports a fire breaking out in a car as a result of a device exploding
Smoke billows from a house in Baalbek in east Lebanon after a reported explosion of a radio device, on September 18, 2024
But following this afternoon’s attacks, the hospital is again on standby to receive a fresh load of casualties.
Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets in the first strike against its enemy since the brutal pager blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East War.
Hachem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah’s executive council, stated that the Iran-backed group is facing ‘a new phase’ and that ‘the punishment will come’.
The attacks amount to the biggest security breach in Hezbollah’s history, with the group and its backers – Iran – condemning Israel and labelling it ‘mass murder’.
The repetition of the clandestine attacks, which Israel has not taken responsibility for, will raise already spiking tensions in the region to fever pitch, with Lebanon’s foreign minister today warning that the blasts are an omen of a widening war.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned this afternoon that the strikes could be a precursor to a bigger confrontation between Israel and Lebanon.
‘The logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a pre-emptive strike before a major military operation,’ he said.
‘These events confirm that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon and everything must be done to avoid that escalation.’
Hazbollah and Israel have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, fuelling fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could drag in the United States and Iran.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of pushing the Middle East to the brink of a regional war by orchestrating a dangerous escalation on many fronts.
‘Hezbollah wants to avoid an all-out war. It still wants to avoid one. But given the scale, the impact on families, on civilians, there will be pressure for a stronger response,’ said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, said in a statement it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza and Israel should await a response to the pager ‘massacre’ which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or dead.
