No fewer than eight persons have been confirmed dead while about 2,750 were seriously injured by exploding handheld pagers across Lebanon.
Firass Abiad, the country’s health minister, who confirmed the ugly incident on Tuesday, said more than 200 people are currently in critical condition.
He said the communication devices exploded on Tuesday morning, causing chaos in the country with about 150 hospitals presently treating the victims.
DAILY POST gathered that Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those injured by the pager explosions.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon said it appears that the devices were hacked and detonated in a coordinated attack.
According the reporter, the incident represented a “major development” in the hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group.
“This is a major security breach. Hezbollah’s communication devices have been compromised. We have seen pictures from across Lebanon of men lying on the floor wounded, bleeding. We have seen reports of hospitals asking for blood,” she said.