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The trail of deadly exploding pagers in Lebanon

18 September 2024123 views0

9 people were killed and around 3,000 wounded in a series of detonations across southern Lebanon on Tuesday.

Reuters reported that “Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations”, according to several sources including a senior Lebanese security official.

Mossad has a reputation for carrying off sophisticated operations, blamed for cyber attacks and suspected of being behind the remote assassination of an Iranian scientist.

The pager trail has been allegedly traced between manufacture in Taiwan and import routes into the region via Budapest.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the blasts, calling it an “Israeli aggression”, and the militant group Hezbollah promised to retaliate.

The Iran-backed group said that “the resistance will continue today, like any other day, its operations to support Gaza, its people and its resistance which is a separate path from the harsh punishment that the criminal enemy (Israel) should await in response to Tuesday’s massacre”.

Rising tensions along Israel’s border with Lebanon has sparked fears of conflict spilling over into the rest of the region.

Israel however has largely been focused on Gaza since the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 2023.

Now, almost a year later, the Gaza Ministry of Health has published a 649-page report including the information of as-many-as-possible identifiable Palestinians who have been killed since the war began, based on age. 34,344 have been identified, though the estimated number of those killed in the Gaza strip since October 7 is closer to 40,000.

When it comes to coverage of the blasts in Lebanon, it’s worth remembering that although Hezbollah members were clearly the target, civilians were also harmed amidst the explosions – including a 10 year old girl and MP’s son who both died, and Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon is currently in hospital with injuries.

But of course, as we know here, headlines like to adopt a certain bias.

Unless otherwise linked, headlines are from the front pages on 18 September 2024.

Hezbollah vows to strike back at Israel after deadly pager attacks

The Guardian

‘Israel’s’ exploding pagers put Middle East on the brink

Daily Mail

It’s worth nothing that while the Daily Mail’s characteristic penchant for using scare quotes around anything that accuses Israel, they did follow up with a different headline online (which still isn’t exactly impartial):

Israeli spies WERE behind pager bomb attack that wounded thousands, humiliated Iran and left Middle East on brink: Mossad and IDF put explosives in Hezbollah gadgets before delivery to Lebanon, sources confirm – as terror group vows revenge

Daily Mail