UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Friday to discuss pager blasts in Lebanon

By Merve Aydogan

HAMILTON, Canada (AA) - The UN Security Council (UNSC) is scheduled to meet on Friday afternoon to discuss the recent mass explosion of pagers – small communication devices – across Lebanon, with the government in Beirut and Hezbollah blaming Israel.

Slovenia, the UNSC's term president, announced on Wednesday that Algeria's request for an emergency meeting has been accepted. The emergency session is scheduled for Friday at 15:00 local time.

Earlier on Wednesday, a new wave of wireless communications device explosions in Lebanon killed at least nine people and injured more than 300 others, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. In the last two days, such incidents have killed 21 people and injured over 3,000 others.

Hadi Hachem, Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations, described the pager blasts as an "aggression which rises to a war crime," warning that they would exacerbate the conflict.

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