Hezbollah hit by a wave of exploding pagers and blames Israel. At least 9 dead, thousands injured

The pagers that exploded had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group's leader ordered members in February to stop using cellphones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence. A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the pagers were a new brand, but declined to say how long they had been in use.

At about 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, as people shopped for groceries, sat in cafes or drove cars and motorcycles in the afternoon traffic, the pagers in their hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.

It appeared that many — if not most — of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it was not immediately clear if others also carried the pagers. The blasts were mainly in areas where the group has a strong presence, particularly a southern Beirut suburb and in the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

The AP reached out to the Israeli military, which declined to comment. The explosions came hours after Israel's internal security agency said it had foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to kill a former senior Israeli security official using a planted explosive device that could be remotely detonated.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States "was not aware of this incident in advance" and was not involved. "At this point, we're gathering information," he said.

Experts said the pager explosions pointed to a sophisticated, long-planned operation, possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the pagers with explosives before they were imported to Lebanon.

Whatever the means, it targeted an extraordinary breadth of people with hundreds of small explosions — all at once, wherever the pager carrier happened to be — that left some maimed.

One video circulating online showed a man picking through produce at a grocery store when the bag he was carrying at his hip explodes, sending him sprawling to the ground and bystanders running.

At overwhelmed hospitals, the wounded were rushed in on stretchers, some with missing hands, faces partly blown away or gaping holes at their hips and legs near the pocket area, according to AP photographers. On a main road in central Beirut, a car door was splattered with blood and the windshield cracked.

Lebanon's health minister, Firas Abiad, said at least nine people were killed, including an 8-year-old girl, and some 2,750 were wounded — 200 of them critically — by the explosions. Most had injuries in the face, hand, or around the abdomen.

Hezbollah said in a statement that two of its members were among those killed. One of them was Mahdi Ammar, the son of a Hezbollah member in parliament, and two sons of other prominent figures were wounded, said the Hezbollah official who spoke anonymously.

"We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians," Hezbollah said, adding that Israel will "for sure get its just punishment."

Iranian state-run IRNA news agency said that the country's ambassador, Mojtaba Amani, was superficially wounded by an exploding pager and was being treated at a hospital.

Previously, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned the group's members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track their movements and carry out targeted strikes.

Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert, said videos of the blasts suggested a small explosive charge – as small as a pencil eraser – had been placed into the devices. They would have had to have been rigged prior to delivery.

"It seems very likely that all of these encrypted pagers were modified prior to Hezbollah purchasing them, which implies a very successful Mossad operation." he said, referring to Israel's foreign intelligence agency.

Israel has a long history of carrying out deadly operations well beyond its borders.

In January, Saleh Arouri, a senior Hamas official, was killed in an airstrike on a Beirut apartment building blamed on Israel. In July, Israel assassinated Hezbollah's top commander in another airstrike. Hours later, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' supreme leader, died in a mysterious explosion in Iran, also blamed on Israel.

Israel has killed Hamas militants in the past with booby-trapped cellphones and it's widely believed to have been behind the Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran's nuclear program in 2010.

Tuesday's explosions came at a time of heightened tensions between Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been clashing near-daily for more than 11 months against the backdrop of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, a Hezbollah ally that is also backed by Iran.

The clashes have killed hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border. On Tuesday, Israel said that halting Hezbollah's attacks in the north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal.