Iran accuses Israel of ‘mass murder’ over pager attack on ally Hezbollah
Terror organization says it will punish Israel, but source tells Qatari newspaper group still doesn’t want full-scale war; Russia claims attack hurt thousands of innocents
Iran, an ally and sponsor of Hezbollah, on Wednesday accused Israel of “mass murder” over the previous day’s attack that caused terror group operatives’ pagers to explode throughout Lebanon, injuring thousands and killing at least 12 people.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, who made the accusation in a statement, also said he “condemned the terrorist act of the Zionist regime.”
Meanwhile a parliamentary source from Hezbollah told a Qatari newspaper that the terror group blames Israel for the attack and will exact a “fair punishment,” but that it still does not want to enter full-scale war with Israel.
“The punishment will be fair, and we’ve said again and again that we don’t want a war, and we’re still ruling that scenario out — despite the enemy’s desire to drag us into it,” the source said, referring to Israel.
“We are fully ready for it, though,” he added.
The massive, unprecedented attack, which apparently wounded nearly 3,000, has been widely attributed to Israel, but Jerusalem has made no comment on the matter.
The Hezbollah source told the al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper that all questions would be answered in an address expected Thursday by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The source also told the newspaper Hezbollah was opening a “comprehensive investigation to discover how explosive material got into the pagers, and how the devices were broken into.”
Reuters reported on Wednesday that Israel’s spy agency Mossad had tampered with some 5,000 pagers destined for Hezbollah before they reached Lebanon, inserting explosive material that was detonated remotely on Tuesday, after remaining undetected for months.
Iran’s envoy to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those wounded in the attack, suffering injuries “to the hand and the face” and losing one eye, according to a report in The New York Times.
The Iranian Red Crescent said Wednesday it had dispatched “rescue teams and eye surgeons” to Lebanon to treat people wounded in the attack.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani also sent emergency teams to Lebanon, according to a statement posted by the Iraqi government on X.
Jordan sent a plane of food and medical supplies, the New Arab reported.
Turkish President Reçep Tayyip Erdogan spoke on the phone with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, expressing support for those killed and wounded, and accusing Israel of attempting to spread conflict in the region, according to Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
Erdogan has been a vocal critic of Israel since the Hamas terror group attacked southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, starting the ongoing war there. He has frequently expressed support for Hamas, and repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, warned that escalation in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict could “spiral out of control,” while Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused those responsible for the attack of trying to “provoke a major war in the Middle East,”
“We strongly condemn the unprecedented attack on friendly Lebanon and its citizens, which constitutes a flagrant violation of its sovereignty and a serious challenge to international law through the use of unconventional weapons,” Zakharova said in a statement.
She also asserted that thousands of innocent people had been hurt in the attack, though it is not clear what the basis was for such an assertion.
Among the 12 people reported killed by the attack were two children, one the son of a Hezbollah lawmaker and the other the daughter of a Hezbollah member, according to Lebanese sources. Both were in close proximity to their fathers when their pagers exploded.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, issuing his own condemnation of the action, said: “Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians, including children among the victims.”
“I consider this situation extremely worrying. I can only condemn these attacks that endanger the security and stability of Lebanon, and increase the risk of escalation in the region.”
Borrell added that the “European Union calls on all stakeholders to avert an all-out war, which would have heavy consequences for the entire region and beyond.”
