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| Volume 54 Number 23, September 21, 2024 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Beirut, first responders rush to aid of victims of
Zionist terror, September 17, 2024
Lebanese security forces said the explosion on September 17 of pagers used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon was the largest cyber security breach that Hezbollah has been exposed to in years. Media reports indicate that at least eleven people were killed and about 4,000 were wounded, 400 of whom are in critical condition. According to the reports, those targeted were primarily Hezbollah personnel, although many civilians and several children were among the killed and wounded. The official Lebanese National News Agency indicated that the pagers exploded simultaneously in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in various towns in the Marjeyoun district in southern Lebanon, as well as in the Hermel area in the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon.
The Resistance Movements condemned the cyber attack as Israeli terrorism against an entire nation. "This is not a security targeting of one, two, or three people. This is a targeting of an entire nation," senior Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil said. Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper quoted a source in Hezbollah as saying, "What happened was a dangerous breach, and it is being investigated."
"This terrorist act is part of the Zionist enemy's larger aggression on the region," Hamas said. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad said: "The treacherous operation carried out by the Zionist entity's devices through the explosion of dual-use communication equipment is a documented war crime. It inflicted severe damage on a large number of innocent civilians inside their homes with premeditated malice." The statement issued by Palestinian Islamic Jihad added, "Although the enemy's resort to this option is intended within the framework of psychological and intellectual warfare, it indicates the level of frustration and the narrow options they now have after the blows they have received from multiple fronts supporting the Palestinian people."
The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement said, "We strongly condemn the criminal and terrorist blasts that targeted Lebanese communication networks, resulting in the martyrdom of many and the injury of hundreds of our brothers and sisters in Lebanon." It added, "The enemy will not succeed in their attempts through their cowardly and treacherous crimes to break the will of resistance in our nation or deter the fighters in Hezbollah and Lebanon from continuing their support for the Gaza Strip."
Yemen's Ansarullah spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam said: "We condemn the Israeli security attack on Lebanon, which targeted many civilians, which is a flagrant crime and a violation of Lebanese sovereignty." Ansarullah's spokesman added, "We are certain that Lebanon is capable of facing all challenges and has a resistance capable of deterring the Zionist enemy and making it pay a heavy cost for any escalation it may undertake against Lebanon."
Israeli government officials instructed to speak to the matter on Israel's Channel 12 cited the head of Knesset stating: "We made great efforts to find a non-military solution in the north and we reached a point where we said enough is enough."
The reference to a "military solution" versus a "non-military solution" relates to the visit of US special envoy Amos Hochstein to Israel the previous day, September 16. According to the Jerusalem Post, the visit was an effort "to secure a diplomatic resolution to the constrained IDF[Israel Defence Forces]-Hezbollah war, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant appeared to pivot toward a military solution." The Washington Post reported that State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, speaking to reporters on September 17, said that "the US was not involved in it [the pager attack]. The US was not aware of this incident in advance." He added, "We would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident, any instability to further increase tensions in the region." He did not condemn the attack, nor did he hold Israel responsible for it.
Editor's Note
A second attack involving exploding handheld radios has now killed at least 20 people and injured another 450. In addition, Israel bombed southern Lebanon on September 19 and claimed that it had thwarted an Iran-backed assassination plot, a day after the explosions of the handheld radios, Reuters has reported. Israel is doing everything in its power to provoke the Resistance forces into responding according to Israel's game plan. However, the Resistance forces will keep their aim of ending the genocide of the people in Gaza and ending the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine uppermost in mind. The peoples of the world stand as one with the Palestinian people as well as with the peoples of Lebanon and other countries Israel is targeting and all the Resistance forces.
(TML In the News, September 18, 2024)