Live updates: Pagers explode across Lebanon in attack targeting Hezbollah members

Photos that appear to show damaged Gold Apollo pagers have emerged on social media, alongside claims that they were damaged in Lebanon’s wave of pager explosions in on Tuesday.

CNN has reached out to the Taiwanese manufacturer for comment.

The New York Times reported Tuesday^[13] that Israel hid explosives inside a batch of pagers ordered from Gold Apollo and destined for Hezbollah. 

Most of the pagers were the company’s AP924 model but three other Gold Apollo models were included in the shipment, the Times reported.

CNN previously reported that the pagers had been purchased by Hezbollah in recent months, according to a Lebanese security source.

Israel was behind the attack that caused thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members to simultaneously explode in Lebanon on Tuesday, CNN has learned.

The operation, which left thousands injured across Lebanon, was the result of a joint operation between Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, and the Israeli military.

Israel placed explosive material in a batch of Taiwanese-made pagers which were imported into Lebanon and destined for Hezbollah, the New York Times reported, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation.

How it happened: The explosives were planted next to the battery in each pager, and a switch embedded to detonate them remotely, according to the New York Times^[14]. The devices detonated simultaneously after receiving a message on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 9 people and injuring more than 2,800 — including at least 170 of whom were in critical condition, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel for the attack. Israel has not commented.

Eyewitnesses have described to CNN how people lay injured in the streets of the Lebanese capital following the deadly pager explosions on Tuesday.  

One witness, who spoke to CNN outside the American University of Beirut Medical Center and asked not to be named citing fears for his safety, described going outside in a southern Beirut suburb after reading about the explosions online. 

Another witness, who also asked not to be named over fears for his safety, said he had been driving to work when he saw Red Cross ambulances and people lying on the ground. 

Is it a prelude to a wider attack or the totality of the message^[15] to Hezbollah? This is the key question for the next 48 hours in the Middle East, as the Lebanese militant group comes to terms with the wholesale disruption and violation^[16] of their most sacred communications.

Tuesday’s wave of explosions in Lebanon^[17] will likely scar the Party, as they are often known, who pride themselves on secrecy, and the technological omerta their members adhere to. Yet it is their very bid to keep their secrets – using low-tech pagers and not more trackable smartphones – that appears to have led to several deaths and thousands of injuries.

It will have caused a seismic shock with Hezbollah members to now be asking not only if it is safe to contact their colleagues, but if those colleagues are unharmed?

Israel has characteristically not claimed responsibility, but if it was behind the attack as Lebanon and Hezbollah say, then the question is whether this vast and unprecedented assault was intended to presage a wider fight.

It would make strategic sense to dispense a moment of intense chaos like this just before a bigger onslaught on the group militarily.

The timing is telling. Just on Monday, the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a meeting with the US envoy Amos Hochstein that the time for diplomacy with Hezbollah had passed and military might could take center stage. Literally hours later, their enemy’s entire communications infrastructure was hit with an attack that, according to a Lebanese security source, used pagers purchased by Hezbollah in “recent months,” necessitating a long lead time in the operation’s planning.

At the same time, the given wisdom that Israel does not want a war either is eroding.

Read more of the analysis here^[18]

At least nine people were killed and 2,800 wounded^[19] in an attack that targeted pagers^[20] held by members of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to the country’s health minister. Iran’s ambassador to Beirut^[21] was one of those injured, according to Iranian state media.

Hezbollah has blamed Israel^[22] and vowed retribution while Lebanese officials urged citizens who possess pagers to discard them.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it will not be commenting^[23]. However, in its first statement since the explosions, the IDF said there were no changes in its advice to civilians^[24].

The attacks have ratcheted up tension in the Middle East^[25]. Here’s what you need to know:

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke twice with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, on Tuesday, according to two US defense officials. The officials would not specify at exactly what time the two calls took place. 

Though Austin and Gallant are in regular contact, it’s uncommon to schedule two calls in one day and shows how seriously the US views the current situation. When Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel on April 13, the two also spoke twice.

At a press briefing earlier Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said only that the two “spoke by phone today” without specifying how many times.

The exact cause of the pager explosions in Lebanon hasn’t been confirmed yet, and the news is developing by the minute. So far, experts who spoke to CNN said the explosions were most likely triggered by hardware tampering rather than another theory of a cybersecurity breach causing lithium batteries to heat up and explode^[36] – but neither has been confirmed by authorities.

Pagers are wireless devices that can send messages without an internet connection. Though they’ve lost popularity to cell phones, some fields like healthcare still depend on them.

Justin Cappos, a cybersecurity professor at NYU, said that it’s possible to cause damage to a variety of batteries – most commonly lithium batteries, which have caused dangerous fires^[38]. But he said it seems like the “devices were intentionally designed to explode when triggered, not a pager that everyone else in the world is using.”

“If you’re a normal person with a lithium-ion battery I would not be over-concerned about this,” Cappos said.

Baptiste Robert, a cybersecurity researcher and the CEO of Predicta Lab, said that rather than being hacked, the pagers were likely modified before shipping. He said the scale of the explosion seems to show it’s a coordinated and sophisticated attack.

When it comes to battery safety, the National Fire Protection Association has a set of safety guidelines^[39] for lithium batteries, such as properly disposing of them. The association also said people should stop using devices with lithium-ion batteries if the battery shows any sign of damage due to risk of fire or explosion.

It’s unclear what kind of battery the pagers in question had. A Lebanese security source told CNN that Hezbollah had recently purchased the devices.

CNN’s Christian Edwards, Adrienne Vogt and Aditi Sangal^[40] contributed to this report.

European airlines Air France and Lufthansa are suspending flights to Tel Aviv at least through Thursday “due to the security situation locally.” 

Air France is also suspending flights to Beirut through Thursday, amid fears of escalation in the region. 

The announcements come after exploding pagers in Lebanon killed at least nine people and injured thousands on Tuesday. 

The pager explosions in Lebanon “mark an extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context,” according to Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon.

In a statement from her office, she condemned the attack that Lebanon says killed nine and injured thousands of others.

She also urged “all concerned actors to refrain from any further action, or bellicose rhetoric, which could trigger a wider conflagration that nobody can afford.”

Hennis-Plasschaert also called for stability in the region to be prioritized.

“Too much is at stake to do anything less,” the statement said.

Hezbollah has long touted secrecy as a cornerstone of its military strategy, forgoing high-tech devices to avoid infiltration from Israeli and US spyware.

In a televised address over six months ago, Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called on Hezbollah members and their families in southern Lebanon, where fighting with Israeli forces across the border has raged for nearly a year, to forgo their cell phones.

“The collaborator (with the Israelis) is the cell phone in your hands, and those of your wife and your children. This cell phone is the collaborator and the killer,” he went on to say in his fiery speech.

Unlike other non-state actors in the Middle East, Hezbollah units are believed to communicate through an internal communications network.

This is considered one of the key building blocks of the powerful group that has long been accused of operating as a state-within-a-state.

The pagers – for decades obsolete to most people in Lebanon – would have served to prompt Hezbollah members to contact one another through those phone lines.

In addition to causing a mass-casualty event across several parts of Lebanon, the apparent infiltration of those pagers, one step removed from their actual networks, will have rattled the Iran-backed group.

In its bid to escape Israel’s radar, its back-to-basics approach appears to have literally backfired in a way that they would have least expected.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid is returning to Israel from the US sooner than expected, following the pager explosions on Tuesday that Lebanon says killed nine people and injured around 2,800.  

His spokesperson Yair Zivan said Lapid was forced to change his plans due to the situation in the region.  

Lapid had traveled to the US on Sunday to discuss the negotiations over a ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas. 

On Monday, Lapid met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington. Following their meeting, he called on the Netanyahu government to do more to secure an agreement, adding that he would give the prime minister “any necessary safety net in order to make the deal.” 

Lapid also met former US President Barack Obama as well as US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan during his trip. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has blamed Israel for the deadly pager explosions in Lebanon, calling it “Israeli terrorism,” in a phone call with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Tuesday. 

Araghchi posted to X offering condolences to the families of the victims and the injured, pledging to provide necessary medical assistance. 

According to Iranian state outlet Press TV, Araghchi specifically inquired about the condition of Iranian Ambassador Mojtaba Amani^[41], who was injured in the explosions, and thanked Lebanon for promptly treating him.

Araghchi also spoke with Amani’s wife, ensuring Iran’s support for his recovery and offering assistance for his possible transfer to Tehran. 

The pagers that exploded were new and had been purchased by Hezbollah in recent months, a Lebanese security source has told CNN.  

The source did not provide any information on the exact date the pagers were purchased or their model.

Jordan on Tuesday said it would be ready to provide “any medical assistance needed by the Lebanese medical sector to treat thousands of Lebanese citizens who were injured,” following the deadly pager explosions.

During a phone call with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi reiterated “Jordan’s support for Lebanon’s security, sovereignty and stability,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Safadi also stressed the need to “stop the dangerous escalation witnessed in the region, through an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression on Gaza.”

Hamas has expressed solidarity with Hezbollah and the Lebanese people following the deadly pager explosions. 

Blaming Israel for the explosions, the group said in a statement, “We, in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), strongly condemn the Zionist terrorist aggression that targeted Lebanese citizens by detonating communication devices in various areas of Lebanese territories, as well as civilian and service facilities.” 

“We value the jihad and sacrifices of our brothers in Hezbollah, and their determination to continue supporting and backing our Palestinian people in Gaza. We express our full solidarity with the Lebanese people and our brothers in Hezbollah, offering our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims,” Hamas said. 

The Israeli military said earlier that it will not be commenting on the incident. 

For context: The pager explosions come amid increased hostility between Hezbollah and Israel, raising tensions in the region that have been heightened since Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023 and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza.

Kim Ghattas, a Lebanese journalist and contributing writer to The Atlantic magazine, told CNN that Hezbollah had recently “gone low tech” in an attempt to prevent more of its operatives from being assassinated.

Israel has not yet commented on the explosions. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel for the attack.

Asked why Israel might have launched such an attack, Ghattas said there are two main explanations.

Background: In a speech in February, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah called on his fighters to do away with their mobile phones, telling them, “shut it off, bury it, put it in an iron chest and lock it up.”

“Do it for the sake of security and to protect the blood and dignity of people,” Nasrallah said, adding, “The collaborator (with the Israelis) is the cell phone in your hands, and those of your wife and your children. This cell phone is the collaborator and the killer.”

The US was “not involved” in the series of pager explosions in Lebanon and was “not aware” of any attack in advance, according to a State Department spokesperson.

Miller would not say what information the US has so far, and would not say whether the US assesses that Israel is responsible or not.

Hezbollah and Lebanon have both blamed Israel for the attack, which injured about 2,800 people and killed at least nine people, according to the Lebanese health minister. The Israel Defense Forces did not comment.

“I don’t have any assessment to offer one way or other at this point,” said Miller.

Miller would not say if the US would make its own assessment, but said it was “gathering information through all of the ways in which we usually gather information.”

“I don’t want to prejudge what we’ll say in the days to come,” Miller said. 

Asked if there were indications that Iran could retaliate, given reports that the Iranian ambassador was injured, Miller said he did not want to speculate until those reports were confirmed. 

“I’ve seen the reports. I don’t want to speak to what the implications might be before a report is confirmed. But certainly, as is always the case, we would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident, any instability, to try to add further instability and to further increase tensions in the region. That has been our message to Iran since October 7,” he said. 

Miller also repeated that the US believes there needs to be a diplomatic solution to the conflict in northern Israel with Hezbollah, and that it is important for Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire in order to make a diplomatic resolution in the north easier. 

Miller said it is “very, very difficult to get a diplomatic resolution in the north absent a resolution to the conflict in Gaza, absent a ceasefire in Gaza, which is why we continue to push for that ceasefire, because we think it’ll help make it much easier to reach a resolution.”

Miller would not say how the US views this attack affecting the ceasefire talks.

Schools in Lebanon will close on Wednesday following the pager explosions that killed at least nine people and injured around 2,800, according to the state-run Lebanese news outlet NNA.    

Citing Education Minister Abbas al-Halabi, NNA reported that technical institutes as well as the Lebanese University and all private higher education institutions would also close “in condemnation of the criminal act committed by the Israeli enemy against citizens, which caused martyrdom and wounded thousands.”  

In its first statement since the deadly pager explosions, the Israeli military said there were no changes in its advice to civilians. 

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) spokesperson clarifies that at this time there is no change to the Home Front Command defensive guidelines. The public are asked to remain alert and vigilant, and any change in policy will be updated immediately,” the military said in a statement. 

Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi held a situational assessment on Tuesday evening “focusing on readiness in both offense and defense in all arenas,” it added. 

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel for killing at least nine people and injuring 2,800 in an attack that targeted pagers held by members of Hezbollah, according to the country’s health minister. 

The Israeli military said earlier that it will not be commenting on the incident. 

For most of the past year, cross-border skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah have been the daily background music to life in Lebanon.

But Tuesday’s exploding pagers attack represents a level of escalation that is perhaps even greater than the assassination of Fu’ad Shukr, the senior Hezbollah commander killed by an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in lateJuly.

Although Israel is refusing to comment on the explosions, Hezbollah has said it holds Israel “fully responsible for this criminal attack.” The Lebanese government has also blamed Israel for the attack.

In fact, this is just the latest in a series of blows to the militant group. After the assassination of Shukr, Hezbollah waited nearly four weeks to launch its response, firing some 300 rockets and drones at Israel in retaliation, the majority of which were shot down by Israeli air defenses.

Now, perhaps thousands of Hezbollah militants have been injured in the pager explosions—a major blow to the Iranian-backed group. The explosions underscore Hezbollah’s profound vulnerability to Israeli infiltration of its intelligence and communications networks.

All of which raises questions about how a crippled and compromised Hezbollah can respond to this latest Israeli coup.  

Experts have shared two competing theories as to how hundreds of pagers could have exploded simultaneously.

One theory is that there was a cybersecurity breach, causing the pagers’ lithium batteries to overheat and detonate.

Another is that this was a “supply chain attack,” where the pagers were tampered with during the manufacturing and shipping process.

David Kennedy, a former US National Security Agency intelligence analyst, told CNN that the explosions seen in videos shared online appear to be “too large for this to be a remote and direct hack that would overload the pager and cause a lithium battery explosion.”

Kennedy said he found the second theory to be more plausible.

“It’s more likely that Israel had human operatives… in Hezbollah… The pagers would have been implanted with explosives and likely only to detonate when a certain message was received,” he said.

Ambulance crews based in northern Lebanon are being deployed to Beirut following the pager explosions, according to the Lebanese Ambulance Association. 

“Teams of ambulance crews working in the north in the centers of Tripoli and Qalamoun headed to the capital to participate in the ambulance and transportation work alongside the various concerned agencies,” the association said in a statement Tuesday. 

The explosions that killed at least nine people, including a child, and injured around 2,800 affected several areas in Lebanon, but particularly the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital, according to Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces. 

State media NNA reported that “hacked” pager devices also exploded in the towns of Ali Al-Nahri and Riyaq in Lebanon’s central Beqaa valley, causing a significant number of injuries. 

The Lebanese government has blamed Israel for Tuesday’s pager explosions, condemning the attack as “criminal Israeli aggression.”

Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the attack represents “criminal Israeli aggression, which constitutes a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards,” according to the state-run NNA news outlet.  

Ziad Makary, the information minister, said in a news conference in Beirut that the Lebanese government has contacted the United Nations and the concerned countries “to hold them accountable for this continuing crime.” 

The Israeli military said earlier on Tuesday it would not be commenting on the incidents. 

The pager explosions have left Hezbollah with few good options in its conflict with Israel, says Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

Although Israel has not commented on the explosions, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have said they hold Israel responsible.

“They’ve lost the deterrence – they haven’t lost it completely, but they’ve been hemorrhaging, if you like, a lot of their deterrence,” she added.

Yahya said how Hezbollah responds to the explosions could be influenced by Israel’s next move.

Hezbollah has placed responsibility for the deadly pager explosions in Lebanon on Israel, and vowed retribution. 

“This criminal and treacherous enemy will definitely receive a fair punishment for this sinful assault, both in ways that are expected and unexpected,” Hezbollah added.  

The Israeli military, which has engaged in tit-for-tat strikes with Hezbollah for months, said it would not be commenting on the incident. 

At least 170 people injured in the explosions in Lebanon are in critical condition, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

The majority of those injuries are in the abdomen, hand and face, particularly in the eye area, he said earlier at a news conference in Beirut. 

Abiad added that many hospitals in southern Lebanon have exceeded capacity due to the sheer number of injured people arriving. More than 100 hospitals in Lebanon — largely in the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the Beqaa valley — received injured people. 

Earlier on Tuesday, the Lebanese Ministry of Health called for health workers to urgently report to work given the “large number of injured people being transferred to hospitals” following the pager explosions. Officials have also called for people to donate blood in anticipation of increased need. 

Seth Jones, the director for the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program, told CNN that Hezbollah will “have to respond” to Tuesday’s pager explosions in Lebanon.

“Now that we’re seeing Israel start to wrap up the war in Gaza, they are starting to turn north,” he said. “Israel is really trying to change the situation on the ground and create some sense of security on its northern border.”

Although Hezbollah’s response to the Israeli assassination of the senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a Beirut suburb in July was “relatively muted,” Jones said Hezbollah will now have no choice but to retaliate.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has previously estimated^[42] that Hezbollah has approximately 150,000 rockets and missiles, including thousands of precision munitions.

At least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, have been killed by Tuesday’s pager explosions, Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Some 2,800 others have been injured in the incidents, Abiad added.

This post has been updated with the number of deaths.

The pager explosions come after Israel’s security cabinet voted Monday to add another war objective^[43] to its ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah: ensuring the safe return of residents from communities along its border with Lebanon to its homes.

After nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel, tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

While the return of residents of northern Israel has long been understood to be a political necessity for Netanyahu’s government, this is the first time it has been made an official war goal.

Before Monday’s vote, Netanyahu had said it won’t be possible to return residents to the north without a “fundamental change in the security situation” along the border, his office said.

He added that Israel will “do what is necessary” to return residents to their homes.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was more explicit, saying the only way to allow the residents to return home is “through military action.”

Israel’s military has not yet commented on Tuesday’s explosions.

The pager explosion incident in Lebanon on Tuesday killed three people, including a child and two members of the militant group, Hezbollah said on its Telegram channel on Tuesday. 

The explosions occurred around 3:30 p.m. local time and impacted “workers” in various Hezbollah institutions, the group said, adding that a “large number” of people were injured. 

Hezbollah said its security apparatus has launched an investigation into the incident, stopping short of blaming any party for it.  

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured in a pager explosion on Tuesday in Beirut, according to Iranian state media IRNA.

Amani has a superficial injury and is currently under observation in the hospital, IRNA reported, citing his wife.

Two employees of the Iranian embassy were also injured, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

The explosions impacted several areas in Lebanon, particularly the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces. 

Explosions reportedly occurred in:

Footage shared online shows people in Lebanon going about their days before their pagers exploded.

In one video, a man is seen shopping in a fruit and vegetable market before an object explodes from his midriff. The man collapses to the ground and cries out in pain, while other bystanders scatter in fear.

In another, security camera footage shows a man about to pay for goods at a store before something on his person explodes, sending a burst of smoke into the air.

In another, a person films the damage inside a bedroom after an apparent explosion. Two holes have been torn through the top and bottom of a drawer, smashing a nearby mirror and scattering debris across the room.

CNN has not been able to independently verify the videos.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it will not be commenting on the reported explosions in Lebanon.

Since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on October 7, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border.

Health workers across Lebanon are being asked to report to work given the “large number of injured people being transferred to hospitals” following Tuesday’s pager explosions, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said.

Officials have also called for people to donate blood in anticipation of increased need.

Hundreds of people in Lebanon have been injured in an attack targeting the pagers of Hezbollah members, a Lebanese security source told CNN Tuesday.

We’ll bring you more on this breaking story as we get it.