After a pager, now it’s walkie-talkies that explode in Lebanon, injuring more than 100 people | World News

BEIRUT — Explosions occurred in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon in what appears to be a second wave of electronic device detonations, Hezbollah officials and state media reported Wednesday, reporting walkie-talkies and even solar equipment exploding a day after hundreds of pagers went off. At least one person was killed and more than 100 were injured, according to the Health Ministry. Several explosions were heard at the funeral in Beirut for three Hezbollah members and a child who were killed the day before by exploding pagers, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.

An AP photographer in the southern coastal city of Sidon saw a car and a cellphone store damaged after devices exploded inside. A Hezbollah official told AP that walkie-talkies used by the group exploded. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Lebanon’s official news agency reports that solar power systems exploded in homes in several areas of Beirut and southern Lebanon, injuring at least one girl.

The new explosions hit a country still in turmoil and anger after Tuesday’s pager attacks, which appeared to be a complex Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah members that also caused civilian casualties. At least 12 people were killed, including two children, and some 2,800 were injured when hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members began detonating wherever they were — in homes, cars, in supermarkets and cafes. In the first wave of attacks, small amounts of explosives appeared to have been hidden in the thousands of pagers delivered to Hezbollah and detonated remotely.

Reports of new electronic devices exploding suggest an even deeper infiltration of booby traps into Lebanon’s supply chain. They also heighten concerns about attacks in which hundreds of explosions occurred in public areas, often in the presence of many bystanders, with no clear indication of who was holding the rigged devices. The attacks, on which Israel has not commented, renewed fears that the simmering conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could escalate into all-out war.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the United States is continuing to assess how the attack could impact efforts to broker a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Israel began moving more troops to its border with Lebanon on Wednesday as a precaution, according to an official with knowledge of the moves who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged fire almost daily since Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led assault in southern Israel sparked the war. Since then, hundreds of people have been killed in the attacks in Lebanon and dozens in Israel, while tens of thousands of people on either side of the border have been displaced.

Hamas and Hezbollah are allies and both are supported by Iran. Israeli leaders have issued a series of warnings in recent weeks that they might step up operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying they must end exchanges to allow people to return to their homes near the border. New details about the operation began to emerge. A U.S. official said Israel informed the United States after the attack, in which small amounts of explosives had been hidden in pagers. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the information publicly. The pagers were made by a company based in Hungary, another firm said Wednesday.

The AR-924 pagers used in Tuesday’s attack were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, according to a statement released by Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company that licensed its brand name for use on the pagers. Gold Apollo Chairman Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters Wednesday that the company has had a licensing agreement with BAC for three years.

“Under the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our trademark for the sale of products in the designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are the sole responsibility of BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement. BAC Consulting Kft. was registered as a limited liability company in May 2022, according to its records. It has a permanent capital of 7,840 euros, according to records, and had revenues of $725,768 in 2022 and $593,972 in 2023.

At the headquarters of a building in a residential neighborhood of Budapest, the names of several companies, including BAC Consulting, are posted on pieces of paper in a window. A woman who left the building and declined to give her name said the site provides headquarters addresses to several companies. BAC’s parent company is registered to Cristiana Rosaria Bársony-Arcidiacono, who describes herself on her LinkedIn page as a strategic advisor and business developer. Among other positions, Bársony-Arcidiacono says on the page that she has served on the board of the Earth Child Institute, a sustainability group. The group does not list Bársony-Arcidiacono among its board members on its website.

The Associated Press has attempted to contact Bársony-Arcidiacono through her LinkedIn page and has been unable to establish a connection between her or BAC and the exploding pagers. The attack in Lebanon began Tuesday afternoon, when pagers in their owners’ hands or pockets began to heat up and then explode, leaving blood-spattered scenes and terrified bystanders. Most of those hit were apparently members or linked to Hezbollah members, whether fighters or civilians, but it was not immediately clear whether people with no ties to Hezbollah were also hit.

The Health Ministry said the dead included health workers and two children. In the Bekaa Valley village of Nadi Sheet, dozens of people gathered to mourn the death of one of the children, 9-year-old Fatima Abdullah. Her mother, dressed in black and wearing a yellow Hezbollah scarf, wept alongside other women and children who gathered around the girl’s coffin before her burial. Hezbollah said in a statement early Wednesday that it would continue its normal attacks on Israel as part of what it describes as a front of support for its ally, Hamas, and the Palestinians in Gaza.

“This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday,” he said. “This is another reckoning that will come, God willing.” In Beirut’s hospitals on Wednesday, the chaos of the previous night had largely calmed down, but relatives of the wounded were still waiting. Lebanon’s Health Minister Firas Abiad told reporters during a visit to hospitals on Wednesday morning that many of the wounded had serious eye injuries and others had limbs amputated. Journalists were not allowed into hospital rooms or to film patients.

Abiad said the wounded had been sent to several hospitals in the area to prevent any one facility from becoming overwhelmed, adding that Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt had offered to help treat the patients. On Wednesday morning, an Iraqi military plane landed in Beirut with 15 tons of medicine and medical equipment, he said. Experts believe explosive material was placed in the pagers before they were delivered.

The AR-924 pager, which is advertised as “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was pulled following the attack. It claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life — crucial in Lebanon, where power outages have been common after years of economic collapse. The pagers also operate on a different wireless network than cellphones, making them more resilient in an emergency — one reason many hospitals around the world continue to rely on them.

For Hezbollah, the pagers also provided a means of circumventing what is believed to be intense Israeli electronic surveillance of mobile phone networks in Lebanon. “The phone we have in our hands — I don’t have a phone in my hand — is a listening device,” Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned in a February speech. Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said that from the beginning of 2022 to August 2024, Gold Apollo has exported 260,000 sets of pagers, including more than 40,000 sets between January and August of this year. The ministry said it had no records of direct exports of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon.