On Tuesday, 12 people were already killed after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded. On Wednesday, walkie-talkies exploded. Israel will have booby-trapped communications devices.
At least 20 people (including at least seven Hezbollah members) were killed and more than 450 injured on Wednesday in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after a wave of simultaneous explosions walkie talkies used by agents of the Shiite fundamentalist group that controls southern Lebanon.
This wave of explosions in walkie talkies It happens a day after a similar episode with pager used by Hezbollah members. On Tuesday, at least 12 people were killed after several pager The booby traps were detonated simultaneously by message.
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The two attacks on telecommunications equipment used by elements of the Shiite group are attributed to Israel, which has not officially confirmed any involvement in an attack against Lebanon. The main suspicion raised by several groups in the Arab world and by several international observers is that Israel has caught hundreds of pager and walkie talkies ordered by Hezbollah, detonating them remotely with the aim of causing the greatest possible damage to the agents of the Lebanese group.
Images shared on social media show the state of the devices after the explosions.
Images circulating online purport to show communication devices used by Hezbollah exploding in Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/xV8tIFGDDh
– Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 18, 2024
Despite being trapped with a small amount of explosives, the telecommunications equipment is located very close to the operators’ bodies, so the explosions, although relatively small, had a significant impact.
The first reports of the explosions began to circulate shortly after 17:00 local time (15:00 in Lisbon) and several simultaneous explosions were reported in the Dahiyeh area, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Images posted on social media showed the moment of one of the explosions, which occurred in the middle of a crowd that had gathered for the funeral of a person who had died the day before, amid the wave of explosions in Beirut. pager.
لحظة انفجار جهاز لاسلكي أثناء تشييع في الضاحية الجنوبية pic.twitter.com/jNYyKHhzDq
– Al Jadeed News (@ALJADEEDNEWS) September 18, 2024
At least two of the explosions occurred when walkie talkies They were inside cars, which caused fires in these vehicles as well. At one point, it was also reported that explosions had occurred in home-made solar power generation systems.
According to The Times of Israel, the walkie talkies It must have been purchased about five months ago, at the same time as the pager which exploded on Tuesday, raising suspicions that it was a coordinated attack.
There are still several doubts about where pager and the walkie talkies and how and when they may have been manipulated. You pager They are from the Gold Apollo brand, a Taiwanese company that has since denied responsibility in the case, guaranteeing that the equipment was produced by a European company that was authorized to sell the Asian brand. The company BAC, based in Budapest (Hungary), is said to be involved.
However, the Hungarian authorities have already stated that the company was only an intermediary and that the devices in question had not passed through Hungarian territory.
Already the walkie talkies They will be manufactured in Japan, but according to CNN this will be a model already discontinued by the Japanese company ICOM.
Following these two waves of explosions in Beirut, it has already been announced that the UN Security Council will meet on Friday to discuss the issue. This comes after António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, had already warned of the “serious risk of a dramatic escalation” in Lebanon.
On Wednesday, CNN also reported, citing three sources familiar with these contacts, that the Israeli government had informed the United States that it would carry out an attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Tuesday, although it gave no details of the attack.
According to CNN, there was even a phone call between Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday morning, hours before several explosions began to occur on communication devices used by Hezbollah operatives. According to CNN, it was Israel that was behind the explosions in pager and we walkie talkieswhich will have been booby-trapped and remotely detonated at the same time.
Source: Observadora
