Lebanon was rocked by a series of device explosions this week, targeting the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah members, resulting in at least 20 deaths, including two children, and thousands of injuries.
Mojtaba Amani, the ambassador of the Islamic Republic to Lebanon, reportedly lost one eye when his electronic pager exploded. A video of Mr. Amani, with his eyes bandaged and his white shirt covered in blood, was published on social media and news outlets inside Iran.
Sheikh Ali Maruf Hejazi’s son was also among the injured. Sheikh Hejazi is a senior member of Al-Mustafa Jama’at of the Qom Seminary and the representative of Ali Khamenei in Lebanon. A photo on social media showed him visiting his son in the hospital.
Hezbollah, a militant group aligned with the Islamic Republic of Iran, accused Israel of orchestrating the attacks. The conflict between Iran and its armed proxies and Israel has been ongoing for decades. The conflict escalated with the attack against Israel on Oct. 7 by Hamas, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,200, including women and children. Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group, is another member of the Islamic Republic’s Axis of Resistance.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Reuters news agency that the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had suffered in almost a year of war with Israel.
Israel has not commented on the explosions, but a similar attack in Lebanon in 1996, which killed Hamas member Yahya Ayyash after his telephone detonated, was attributed to Israel at the time. Ayyash was the lead bomb maker for the group and masterminded the development of suicide bombings against Israel.
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