PNN – A year has passed since Israel’s terrorist crime of exploding pagers in Lebanon and the physical and psychological harm it caused to thousands of people. Despite the Lebanese government’s indifference to the victims’ condition, Hezbollah, on the front lines of serving these people, has continued to follow up on their treatment and announced their recovery.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, “We have recovered” is the message that Hezbollah is conveying on the first anniversary of the Zionist regime’s terrorist crime of exploding pagers.
We have recovered is not just a slogan; it is the path that Hezbollah is following to heal thousands of wounded people in a society that the Zionist enemy deliberately sought to completely destroy; where hundreds of those who had lost their eyes and hands in this crime suddenly found themselves facing a government that did not have the power to support them and left them to their fate at the beginning of the journey.
The Zionists’ bloody crime of pager explosions in Lebanon
On September 17, 2024, exactly one year ago, it was nearly 3:30 p.m. when blood suddenly flowed through the streets of Lebanon and no one initially knew what had happened and no one could compile a complete account of the events. There were reports of burned faces, severed hands, gouged-out eyes, and screams heard in the streets, homes, and hospital doors.
This was not a war, but a real massacre, and the details seemed difficult to piece together in the early hours. But gradually the picture became clear, where the Zionist regime was detonating pagers in Lebanon one after another, reaching a total of 5,000 pagers, and dozens of people were martyred in this crime and more than 3,000 were injured.
Read more:
According to security sources, the pagers that exploded were bombed with an IC chip from the source [manufacturer] and contained explosives. The explosives were embedded in these devices in such a way that they were not detectable upon examination, and the Israeli intelligence services Mossad and Shin Bet were behind this criminal attack.
Accordingly, the explosion was caused by a high-tech message that activated the embedded explosive. Of course, it was not the pager batteries that caused the blast wave, but the lithium material in the batteries that caused the devices to explode when the message of the explosion was received.
The devices that were turned off or were in areas without a message, like the old devices, remained intact and did not explode. The explosive material in these pagers was used to kill and murder; especially since these devices were placed in pockets and on the thigh so that the blast wave would enter directly into the body of the person carrying it. About four seconds after the connection tone and text message were heard, these devices automatically exploded, whether they were in front of the person carrying them or if the devices were not opened at all.
This crime of cyber terrorism was a turning point in Hezbollah’s confrontation with the Zionist enemy; Hezbollah, which joined the battle on October 8, 2023, one day after the start of the historic Battle of Al-Aqsa Storm, to support the Palestinian people and resistance, and at the same time, protected Lebanon’s sovereignty from the aggression of the occupying regime.
The Zionist regime sought to paralyze Lebanese society by exploding pagers, causing the greatest possible casualties among Lebanese citizens and creating tension in the country. Lebanese doctor Ghassan Abusettah said about the crime that the evidence shows that the enemy wanted to inflict the greatest and worst possible physical harm on Lebanese citizens and psychologically pressure Lebanese society. This incident was the largest and first of its kind, and its consequences continue to this day, with a large number of injured people still receiving treatment.
Hezbollah on the front lines of serving victims amid Lebanese government silence and inaction
But one of the most prominent issues that bothered the victims of this crime was that the Lebanese government did not fulfill its duty towards them and did not provide them with the necessary services. So, as always, Hezbollah stepped in and the institutions affiliated with this movement, from the Wounded Foundation to the Islamic Health Directorate and related associations, took the main responsibility for this case.
From the very beginning, the Islamic Health Directorate affiliated with Hezbollah united and coordinated with doctors, nurses, and health workers stationed in the emergency rooms of hospitals to receive the wounded and provide the necessary medical services. Urologists, cardiologists, and other specialists affiliated with the Islamic Health Directorate also effectively participated in the treatment of the wounded.
Of course, in the first days of the incident, Lebanese government hospitals and medical centers, including Rafik Hariri University Hospital and Baabda Government Hospital, provided significant services to the victims of the pager explosions, but a few days later, when the wave of the incident subsided, services were no longer provided at the same speed. After that, the Zionist regime’s extensive war against Lebanon began, and with the arrival of war wounded, the issue of pagers and their victims was sidelined.
Thus, the Islamic Health Directorate and several other Hezbollah-affiliated institutions were fully responsible for following up on the victims of the pager explosion. Meanwhile, the Lebanese are very appreciative of the services that the Iranian Red Crescent provided to the injured in the pager explosion.
According to Al-Manar, Lebanese sources reported that the government had been failing to provide services to the victims of the pager explosions from the very beginning, or more clearly, did not consider it its direct responsibility. In addition, there was a belief that the victims of the pager explosions were Hezbollah’s share and that it was the movement’s responsibility to deal with them.
Stages of rescuing victims; Iran’s effective assistance in treating the injured
Mahmoud Karki, media officer for the Civil Defense Department of the Islamic Health Authority of Lebanon, said that in the initial moments of the pager explosion, Civil Defense personnel, including members of the Islamic Health Authority, played a prominent role in the rescue operation. The first phase of this operation coincided directly with the explosions, and the injured were transferred to hospitals in coordination with the Ministry of Health’s emergency unit. The next day, the work of transferring the injured to other countries to receive specialized medical services began.
Wounded Foundation: Begins Rehabilitation Process in Cooperation with the Ministry of Health
The first moment of the pager explosion was very shocking, and despite the extensive experience of the Hezbollah-affiliated Wounded Foundation during the two wars with the Israeli regime and the continuous monitoring of the condition of the wounded, the case of the pager explosion victims was the most difficult experience.
Dr. Ibrahim Naeem, who follows up on the cases of the wounded at the Hezbollah Wounded Foundation, said: We had never witnessed an incident of this magnitude and severity, and this was unprecedented, not only in Lebanon but throughout the world, where we encountered so many injured people in one day, often losing their eyesight.
He added: Shortly after that, the war began and we were forced to close our centers. For two months, we monitored the condition of the wounded in homes and hospitals. By the end of the war, we had compiled specific statistics on the types of injuries and, based on that, we were addressing the condition of the wounded.
The Hezbollah health official emphasized that the most difficult challenge for us was the type of injuries, as most people had suffered vision impairments and loss of limbs, and our focus was on two levels of treatment: Occupational therapy and physiotherapy aim to reintegrate these people into society and train them to live independently after losing their vital organs.
The failure of the Zionist conspiracy to paralyze the resistance community with cyber-terror
The Zionist regime, which sought to paralyze the new generation of resistance through this crime of cyber terrorism and destroy the spirit of the resistance community, sees after a year that the spirit of resistance in Lebanon is alive despite all the seditions and chaos of this regime and its supporters.
Furthermore, as Hezbollah officials, including His Excellency Sheikh Naim Qassem, the Secretary General of the movement, have repeatedly emphasized the Zionist regime’s terrorist crime of exploding pagers, which is an unprecedented event, has heightened the vigilance of the resistance’s security and intelligence unit and helped fill the gaps that became apparent during the war with the enemy.
About two months ago, Hezbollah’s Secretary General said in an interview with Al-Mayadeen: In the case of the pager explosion issue, a loophole was discovered in the purchasing process that had been going on for the past year and a half. We were not aware that the procurement process had been leaked and we were unable to detect the possibility of the pagers exploding through our own tools. The explosives embedded in the pagers were of an exceptional type and were not detected in the investigation using existing tools and known methods, and we can also attribute this to negligence and omission.
The Hezbollah Secretary General emphasized: Human error and omission is very minor and limited compared to the vast amount of information available to the enemy. However, I promise that after the investigation is completed, I will talk to the people and determine whether human error occurred and the extent of the error.
He said that today we are facing a new stage that has its own conditions, tools, possibilities and plans. We won with perseverance, the enemy did not achieve its goals, no internal sedition occurred in Lebanon, and the resistance remained steadfast despite the pressures, sacrifices and unlimited support of the world’s major countries for the Zionist regime, and this is a real victory.