Lebanese Health Minister Reports Over 150 Injured in Explosions Are in Critical Condition
Firass Abiad, Lebanon’s health minister, told Al Jazeera in an interview that at least 170 of the wounded from the bombings in Lebanon were in serious condition.
He had said earlier at a news conference in Beirut that most of those injuries are in the face, hands, and abdomen, particularly around the eyes.
Abiad continued, “The unparalleled injury influx has also swamped most hospitals in the south of Lebanon.” More than 100 hospitals in Lebanon, most in the Beqaa valley, southern Lebanon, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, took in injured patients.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health issued an urgent alert to all medical staff earlier on Tuesday due to the “large number of injured people being transferred to hospitals” following pager blasts. Meanwhile, authorities have called for blood donation in preparation for an expected increase in demand.
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Defense Analyst States Hezbollah “Will Have to Respond” to Pager Explosions
Seth Jones, a Washington-based expert who leads the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was quoted by CNN as saying that Hezbollah will “have to respond” to today’s explosions in Lebanon.
He said, “Israel is starting to turn north now that we’re starting to see them begin to wrap up the war in Gaza.” “Israel is making a serious effort to improve the ground conditions and establish a sense of security along its northern border.”
Even though the Hezbollah response to Israel’s killing of the terror group’s ranking commander, Fuad Shukr, in a Beirut suburb last July, was “quite mild,” per Jones, it will be compelled to strike anew.
Hezbollah was earlier estimated to have more than 150,000 rockets and missiles, many of which are precision weapons, by the IDF.
Lebanese Health Minister Reports At Least 9 Dead and 2,800 Injured in Pager Explosions
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad said the pagers blasts on Tuesday killed at least nine people, including an eight-year-old child.
Abiad added another 2,800 other people had been injured in the incidents.
Pager Explosions Occur After Israel Broadens War Objectives
Pager explosions began Monday evening following a decision by Israel’s security cabinet to make the safe return of citizens from towns along its border with Lebanon to their homes a military objective as part of the country’s ongoing struggle against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Tens of thousands of civilians in northern Israel and southern Lebanon have been made homeless by the countless cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah over the past year plus.
While the political necessity to return citizens to northern Israel has long been conveyed to Netanyahu’s government, this is the first time that it has been announced as an official war aim.
Before Monday’s vote, Netanyahu said, according to his office, a “fundamental change in the security situation” along the border was needed before people could be sent back north.
Israel would “do what is necessary, he added, to allow people to return home.
More directly, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the only option to permit the residents to return home is “through military action.”
The Israeli military has not commented yet on Tuesday’s explosions.
