Iran’s Guard Corps denies report 19 members killed in Syria by exploding pager attack
Saudi outlet Al-Hadath also says 150 operatives injured; Lebanese health minister updates latest death toll in his country to 12, and around 2,750 injured
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Wednesday denied a report that a massive wave of pager explosions the day before in Lebanon had also killed 19 of its members in Syria.
Saudi Arabian outlet Al-Hadath had made the claim, saying the deaths occurred in the Deir Ezzor region in eastern Syria and that a further 150 IRGC members were injured.
The IRGC said none of its members were “martyred in the pagers incident” and that any reports to that effect were “false,” the Islamic Republic’s Mizan news agency reported.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said Wednesday that 12 people were killed in his country and between 2,750 and 2,800 others were wounded, revising the toll up from nine dead.
“After checking with all the hospitals,” the toll was revised to “12 dead including two children,” Abiad told a news conference.
The dead included a girl and a boy as well as four health workers from private hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs who had pagers, he said.
Abiad said that “the attack was very big” with about 2,800 wounded people pouring into Lebanese hospitals “within half an hour.”
The unprecedented explosions also reportedly killed and injured a number of people in Syria.
Iran provides funds and military support to both Hezbollah and the Syrian regime.
Hundreds of the wireless devices exploded simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday, hours after Israel said it was broadening the aims of the Gaza war to include its fight against Hamas ally Hezbollah, which has been attacking across the northern border in support of Gaza since last October.
Israel has yet to comment on the attacks.
The pagers went off in the Iran-backed Hezbollah group’s main strongholds of southern Beirut and Lebanon’s east and south.
“A little less than 300 patients are in critical condition” with some suffering from face injuries and brain hemorrhaging, Abiad said.
“The wounded who arrived at the emergency room were not all young men. We saw children and elderly people,” Abiad said.
Iran, Hezbollah’s ally and sponsor, accused Israel on Wednesday of “mass murder” over the pager attack.
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.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that the 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 months undetected.
Hezbollah announced the deaths of 12 members of the terror group on Tuesday — including some killed in separate Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon — and blamed Israel for the spree of pager blasts, promising to retaliate. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was not hurt in the explosions, the group said.
Israeli leaders in recent days have expressed their belief that only military action can bring an end to the clashes along the northern border. Hezbollah began launching near-daily attacks on the north on October 8, but claims it is not interested in war, and has said it will halt the attacks when the war in Gaza ends. Both terror groups avowedly seek to destroy Israel.
