Middle EastAnalysis

Beirut pager detonations the latest instalment in how war is waged

Lebanon’s already fragile healthcare system continuing to grapple with aftermath of mass casualty event

Friends and relatives of injured people arrive at the American University of Beirut Medical Center. Photograph: Wael Hamzeh/EPA
Friends and relatives of injured people arrive at the American University of Beirut Medical Center. Photograph: Wael Hamzeh/EPA
Hannah McCarthy in Beirut
Wed Sept 18 2024 - 15:24

Ambulances arrived every few minutes at the Lebanese American University Medical Center in Beirut’s Achrafieh neighbourhood in the aftermath of Tuesday’s simultaneous detonation of hundreds of pager devices used by Hizbullah members.

Lebanese soldiers stood watch as medical staff and injured men arrived at the hospital. As night fell, women wept together outside, with only those injured or giving blood allowed inside. Many of the women wore the black chadors which denote the devout Lebanese Shia Muslim community from which Hizbullah, a militant and political organisation backed by Iran, draws much of its support.

As morning broke on Wednesday, one military vehicle remained on watch at a distance from the hospital while a few tired people sat on the pavement outside. Some were smoking, while others entertained young children. One man whose brother was injured in the attack told The Irish Times he hadn’t slept yet.

With two waves of refugees, and an internal displacement crisis on its southern border with Israel, Lebanon is facing severe tests after years of turmoil.

Lebanon’s health ministry confirmed the deaths of 12 people from the pager attack including an 11-year-old boy and the eight-year-old daughter of a Hizbullah member in the Bekaa valley. The ministry said an estimated 2,800 people have been injured, about 300 seriously. A report by news agency Reuters said the pagers that were detonated had been distributed months earlier not just to members of Hizbollah’s military wing but also to personnel such as medics who work in branches of the group’s expansive organisation delivering social and relief services.

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Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, also suffered more serious injuries than first reported, losing an eye and suffering a severe injury to the other when a pager he was carrying detonated. Amini has reportedly been transferred to Tehran for further treatment.

Ali, a Lebanese man living in southern Beirut but who originally comes from Bint Jbeil, a Hizbullah stronghold along the Lebanese-Israeli border, described the attack as “a terrorist attack” by Israel. “It injured a lot of people for sure and those who weren’t injured are still in some sort of shock because of what happened,” he said. “But it’s nothing we haven’t seen — we expect anything from them,” referring to Israel.

Lebanon’s already fragile healthcare system was continuing to deal with the fallout from the mass casualty event, which caused injuries to the eyes, stomachs and hands of many victims. Lebanon’s minister of public health, Dr Firas Abiad, said he had received calls of support from the Egyptian, Syrian, Iranian, and Iraqi governments. A plane carrying aid for the injured arrived in Beirut from Iraq on Wednesday morning.

[ How did hundreds of pagers explode suddenly? Experts note two types of attack ]

Danny, a 36-year-old from a Christian town north of Beirut described the attack as “unprovoked”. He said he had sympathy for the non-Hizbullah victims and that organisation’s people injured because they were “doing nothing and [were] then suddenly attacked”. But he feared a retaliation by Hizbullah could lead to an escalation of its war with Israel.

Joseph El-Khoury, a Lebanese psychiatrist who was in Beirut during the attack, spoke to many people who had witnessed the explosions first-hand, including a father who said he had no way to explain what was happening to his children who saw “limbs blown off” and “blood everywhere”. El-Khoury says people in Lebanon were still trying to make sense of what the attack meant “for their personal safety, their relationship with technology, [and] their relationship with the devices that they use on a daily basis”. He said: “I think the fear is real that we’ve entered a completely new sense of unsafety, and this is definitely going to trigger more anxiety in people.”

The pager attack was “not only about Lebanon”, said El-Khoury. “It has a wide-ranging impact on how warfare is carried out and what it means to be safe, or the concept of being ‘at the front’ — the front is now your own home, it’s your car, it’s anything.”