Lebanon: Telecommunications devices were planted with explosives in advance and detonated via emails

Initial investigations by Lebanese authorities into the radios that exploded in Lebanon this week showed they were rigged with explosives before arriving in the country, according to a letter from Lebanon's mission to the United Nations seen by Reuters.

According to the letter sent to the UN Security Council, authorities also found that the devices, which included pagers and other wireless communication devices, were detonated by sending electronic messages to the devices.

The mission added that Israel was responsible for planning and carrying out the attacks.

In updates from the Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Public Health in Lebanon, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad announced that the death toll from the explosion of communication devices used by Hezbollah over the past two days has risen to 37 dead and 3,539 wounded.

He explained that "the number of martyrs for the first day (Tuesday) of the bombings is still 12, while the number of wounded is 2,323 after checking the numbers, including 226 cases in intensive care, and 955 surgeries were performed."

He also reported that "the latest death toll from the Ministry of Health for the bombings the day before yesterday is 25 martyrs and 608 wounded, 61 of whom are in intensive care. 141 surgeries have been performed up to this hour, and 64 hospitals participated in receiving the wounded the day before yesterday."

The 15-nation UN Security Council is scheduled to meet to discuss the bombings on Friday. Israel has not commented directly on the attacks.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib headed to New York today, Thursday, to participate in an emergency session of the Security Council that will be held tomorrow afternoon, Friday, to discuss the situation in Lebanon.

The session comes at the request of the Lebanese side, through Algeria, a non-permanent member of the Security Council and representative of the Arab Group, following the attacks that targeted several Lebanese regions, especially the southern suburb of Beirut, the South, the Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel.

Lebanon raised the alert level to its highest level, after a wave of bombings that targeted Hezbollah's communications devices, which were considered one of the biggest breaches and most dangerous stages of the conflict since the beginning of the war on the southern Lebanese front on October 8.

The political arena is witnessing widespread movement, in an attempt to prevent the expansion of the war in the country, coinciding with the Emergency Committee intensifying its meetings to present possible scenarios in the event of an expansion of the attacks, including readiness at the health level, sheltering the displaced, and securing basic materials and goods.

(Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Reuters)