Beirut - Patients screamed in pain and paramedic teams shouted frantic orders to attend to gaping wounds at Beirut’s Hotel Dieu hospital on Tuesday afternoon, after thousands of handheld pagers belonging to Hezbollah members exploded almost simultaneously.
Ambulances rushed through the hospital gates, delivering victims splattered in blood, most with bandages encasing their heads and hands. Some were carried by their own family members.
“The injuries are very severe,” Dr Antione Zoghbi, the director of the hospital’s emergency department, told The New Arab, as victims continued to arrive. By nightfall, the hospital had reached capacity, with more than 120 wounded filling all of the available beds.
Over 3,000 people were injured and at least 12 people were killed - including two children and numerous civilians - in the operation suspected to have been carried out by Israel against Hezbollah members. The pagers exploded across the country - from Beirut’s densely-packed southern suburbs to the country’s eastern Bekaa valley and southern regions.
“Most of [the victims] suffered from injuries to their eyes and on their hands because they were holding their pager devices while looking at them,” Dr Zoghbi explained. “Almost all of the wounded hands have to be amputated and many eyes will be surgically removed,” the doctor said. One of those who reportedly lost an eye was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani.
The hospital’s entire 300-person staff was mobilised as it activated its emergency plan, the doctor said. Meanwhile, the Civil Defence deployed all of its ambulances in a massive rescue effort, their blaring alarm horns reverberating off Beirut’s streets.
The hectic ballet of ambulances encircled a hospital employee at Hotel Dieu. “It feels like August 4th,” he muttered with disbelief, remembering the traumatic explosion that ripped through Beirut’s port in 2020 and killed more than 200, wounding thousands.
A second wave of explosions on Wednesday afternoon wounded a further 100 people and killed at least one, Lebanon’s health minister Firas Abiad confirmed at 6pm, but the death toll continues to rise. This time, walkie-talkies, cell phones, and other electronic devices detonated in the streets and in people’s homes.
Explosions were reported around the country, including in a phone shop in the southern city of Saida, and at the funeral in Beirut’s southern suburbs for three Hezbollah members and a child, creating a wave of panic among those in attendance.
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Mossad infiltration
Hezbollah called the operation its “biggest security breach” since the war with Israel began in October 2023 and vowed it would receive “fair punishment” for the blasts. The Israeli military has declined to comment.
The Alphanumeric Pager (AP-900) produced by the Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, has been identified as one of the pagers that exploded. However, the company has denied it made the pagers in the attack, noting that it authorised BAC - a company based in Budapest, Hungary - to use Gold Apollo’s trademark and manufacture the product.
Experts believe Israel’s Mossad spy agency rigged the pagers with explosive materials in a sophisticated supply chain infiltration.
A security source quoted by Reuters said that Mossad injected a board inside the device, which was loaded with explosive material and would activate in response to a coded message, and would have been hard to detect “by any means”. Hezbollah reportedly ordered the 5,000 pagers from Gold Apollo months ago.
Based on the intensity of the explosions recorded on surveillance cameras, a maximum of 10 grams of explosives was likely planted in the devices, a pyrotechnic expert and a battery technology researcher told The New Arab on condition of anonymity.
Given that the devices only weighed 50 grams, more weight would have made its users suspicious, the expert said.
Israel turns 'more aggressive' in north
Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher with the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said the operation signalled “a change in Israel’s strategy toward the north”, where near-daily attacks from Hezbollah had been hitting deeper into Israeli territory in the days leading up to the pager explosions.
“The [operation] is a message from Israel that it will be more aggressive” and that it is not afraid of going into a full-scale war, she said. The operation could reflect “a pre-emptive first blow or strike that is going to be continued, but we’ll have to wait and see”.
Two days before the pager operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security council made the safe return of residents to the north of the country an “official war goal”. A day prior, Netanyahu announced the expanded war goals to include Lebanon’s border.
Mizrahi said that this signals an “important change” in Israel’s strategy, prioritising the north rather than dealing with it as a secondary front.
Hezbollah 'unwilling' to go to war
The devastating pager operation was “likely the greatest Israeli attack against Hezbollah since its inception”, Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center, told The New Arab.
“I don’t recall seeing that number of Hezbollah operatives struck at the same time, it’s a huge, huge strike,” he said.
Hage Ali referenced Israel’s raid of a Hezbollah training camp near Lebanon’s northeastern city, Baalbek, in 1994, which left at least 45 dead. He noted this was the only time the group suffered a setback comparable to the losses of yesterday’s attack.
“But the organisation did manage to survive that and they can manage to get back on their feet now,” he said.
He emphasised that Hezbollah remains “unwilling to go to war with Israel” because of the latter’s “disproportionate display of force” and its being backed by the US. But another reason, Hage Ali added, is that the group wishes to avoid an all-out war which would inevitably draw in Iran and other superpowers, leading to a regional deflagration.
“This war has brought a lot of pain and setbacks [to Hezbollah], so they’re looking forward to the end, which is a Gaza ceasefire,” Hage Ali said.
Exiting the conflict now would harm the group’s reputation in Lebanon and its standing in the Iran-backed regional alliance, he added. So, “they will take the pain and respond with more of the same: strikes against Israeli bases and claims of higher tolls than the Israelis claim,” Hage Ali said.
“Hezbollah is not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, [because] Netanyahu is still pushing for a larger conflict.”
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Fears of escalation
At the Hotel Dieu hospital, fears of the conflict escalating permeated among many of those waiting for their friends and loved ones.
“I think this might be the prelude to a full-fledged Israeli ground invasion - if not now, then after Hezbollah’s response, which will have to be strong,” Yahya, a European student living close to Hotel Dieu, told The New Arab.
Dusk had fallen and Yahya stood at the hospital exit after donating his blood. Like him, thousands of others had also rushed to hospitals around the country to help victims of the operation, including ministers and MPs.
“As a Shia, this attack affected me a lot because it targeted my community, but also many civilians from all sects,” he added. For Yahya - as for most people anxiously waiting for their relatives in front of the hospital - what happened on Tuesday constituted a “massacre”.
Lebanese Ambassador to the UN Hadi Hachem said the attack constituted “a war crime" at a UN General Assembly emergency session on Tuesday evening. He also accused Israel of “defying international law and resolutions”.
On Wednesday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the mass explosive attack “violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law”.
He called for a “thorough and transparent investigation”, saying those who ordered and carried it out “must be held to account”.
Researchers and human rights lawyers have claimed that if Israel’s role was proven this “indiscriminate” attack would indeed constitute a war crime. According to the experts, the attack breached Article 51 of the Geneva Convention, which ensures the civilian population is not targeted, and Rule 12 of the Customary International Humanitarian Law, which also prohibits direct attacks against civilians.
“The Israeli occupation forces have no morals. They want to win, no matter how many civilian lives they take. This is just a new version of the Dahyeh doctrine,” Yahya said with anger, referring to Israel's obliteration of Beirut’s southern suburbs during the 2006 war.
Many Lebanese now fear other kinds of technological attacks. Left tired and traumatised by the Beirut port explosion and the country’s economic crisis, they now face Israel’s psychological warfare - including its now regular “mock explosions” by fighter jets.
As the arrival of ambulances slowed down, the faces of those waiting at the hospital’s gates were worn out by fear, sadness, and tiredness. Now, all they can do is anxiously await the recovery of those close to them - and speculate on what the future has in store.
Hanna Davis is a freelance journalist reporting on politics, foreign policy, and humanitarian affairs.
Follow her on Twitter: @hannadavis341
Philippe Pernot is a French-German photojournalist living in Beirut. Covering anarchist, environmentalist, and queer social movements, he is now the Lebanon correspondent for Frankfurter Rundschau and an editor for various international media.
Follow him on Twitter: @PhilippePernot7