Iranian Ambassador Injured in ‘Terrorist Attack’ in Lebanon
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured on Tuesday when an electronic pager exploded in his possession, according to Iranian state media.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi condemned the incident as a “terrorist attack” in a phone call to his Lebanese counterpart. He expressed gratitude for Lebanon’s prompt medical attention to Amani.
Security sources told Reuters that over 1,000 people across Lebanon, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were injured when dozens of pagers used for communication detonated.
A Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the incident was the “biggest security breach” the group had experienced in almost a year of conflict with Israel.
According to The New York Times, the World Health Organization said that it was providing assistance to hospitals in Lebanon and supplying essential resources, as many health facilities were overwhelmed with injured patients, describing the situation as an “emergency” in a statement.
On Tuesday afternoon, before the deadly explosions in Lebanon, the Israeli military had accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate a retired senior member of the country’s security services. The military claimed that the operatives had used an explosive device that could be remotely detonated from Lebanon. They stated that the same operatives were behind a similar attempted attack in Tel Aviv last year.
In a separate incident, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, reported that at least 14 people were injured by pager explosions in an apparently coordinated attack on Hezbollah in Syria.
