Deadly pager attacks endanger security, stability of Lebanon, risk further regional escalation: EU foreign policy chief

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) – Yesterday’s deadly pager attacks in Lebanon endangered the country’s security and stability and risked worsening the regional escalation, said the EU foreign policy chief on Wednesday.

Stressing that thousands of people were injured, with hundreds in critical condition, Josep Borrell said in a statement: “Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians: several children are among the victims.”

He added: “I consider this situation extremely worrying. I can only condemn these attacks that endanger the security and stability of Lebanon and increase the risk of escalation in the region.”

The EU urges “all stakeholders to avert an all-out war, which would have heavy consequences for the entire region and beyond,” he added.

The wireless pagers exploded Tuesday in several areas in Lebanon, including the capital Beirut, in what Lebanese media suggested was an Israeli plot.

Lebanese security sources said that Israel’s spy agency Mossad planted explosives inside the pagers used by Hezbollah members months before they exploded.

The wireless devices “were rigged with several grams of hard-to-detect explosives, placed in the battery in a way that ensures they can’t be detected by sensors or any explosive detection tools,” Mounir Shehada, the Lebanese government’s former coordinator with the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL, told Anadolu.

Hadi Hachem, Lebanese ambassador to the UN, called the pager blasts an "aggression which rises to a war crime" and warned that it would exacerbate the conflict.

There was no comment from Israel on the blasts, but Hezbollah vowed to retaliate against Israel following the explosions.

The blasts came amid mounting border escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, who have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the start of Tel Aviv’s deadly war on the Gaza Strip, a nearly year-long war which has killed over 41,000 people, mostly women and children, following a Hamas attack last Oct. 7.