Senior diplomats from the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Italy are meeting in Paris to discuss rising tensions in the Middle East following the blast of pagers and other devices in Lebanon.
Sources revealed that in Tuesday’s bombings, Israeli intelligence agency Mossad remotely detonated explosives it had planted in about 5,000 Hezbollah pagers.
During a visit aimed at salvaging stalled talks to end the conflict brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a ceasefire in Gaza would be the best way to stop the spread of violence in the Middle East.
Hand-held radios used by the armed group Hezbollah also exploded on Wednesday afternoon in southern Lebanon after pager blasts. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured on Wednesday in the suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. Meanwhile, the death toll from Tuesday’s blasts rose to 12 people, including two children, with some 3,000 injured.
The hand-held radios were acquired by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time as the pagers, a security source said. A Hezbollah official claimed the incident was the largest security breach in the group’s history.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of bringing the Middle East to the brink of regional war. The UN Security Council will meet on Friday over the pager bombings at the request of Arab states.
Escalation is possible
Tehran’s ambassador to Lebanon was slightly injured in Tuesday’s explosions. However, the New York Times reported on Wednesday that he lost one eye and the other was seriously injured when his pager exploded. Iran’s ambassador to the UN stated in a letter that Iran “reserves its rights under international law to take the measures deemed necessary to respond” to the attack.
Meanwhile, former Italian prime minister and M5S leader Giuseppe Conte condemned his country’s efforts at the UN for a ceasefire in the region.
Italy abstains once again, at the UN, on a vote to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. What a shame! We continue to turn our heads away from an illegal occupation, just as we remain indifferent to the barbarity in Gaza, with the massacre of over 40,000 civilians.
However, White House national security spokesman John Kirby stated on Wednesday that it was too early to assess the impact of the bombings on the ceasefire talks.
Hezbollah announced in a statement that it would continue to support Hamas in Gaza, while Israel should wait for a response to the pager “massacre.” Meanwhile, a Hamas delegation visited people wounded in explosions at Lebanese hospitals on Wednesday.
The bombings followed a series of assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas commanders and leaders attributed to Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza war.
