Beirut, Lebanon – Electronic devices exploded in southern Beirut and other parts of Lebanon for the second day in a row on Wednesday, causing casualties and causing fires, a second attack blamed on Israel.
Twenty people were killed and more than 450 wounded in Wednesday’s attack, according to Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry. On Tuesday, thousands of Hezbollah pagers exploded, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000.
The proximity of these two attacks has raised many concerns in Lebanon about the use of their electronic devices and the security situation in the country.
The attack reportedly targeted cell phones, laptops, solar cells and walkie-talkies purchased around the same time – about five months earlier – as the explosive pagers.
Devices exploded in cities including Beirut and its southern suburbs, Hermel, Baalbek, Saida, Nabatieh, Tyre, Naqoura and Marjayoun.
“We really don’t know”
Authorities were still carrying out controlled explosions of suspicious devices discovered in various locations across the country on Wednesday evening.
Tension and concern among the Lebanese population have intensified as the devices that were supposed to explode on Wednesday were more “modern” and used more widely.
Event planner Maria Boustany has asked her team to ditch the walkie-talkies they use to communicate at weddings and events due to concerns about their safety.
“It may not be the same brand, but we don’t really know what’s going on,” she said.
Instead, Boustany said his team will use WhatsApp to communicate.
“It’s better to be careful,” she said.
The team did not use pagers.
Lebanon’s hospitals are ‘coping’
In front of the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), relatives and friends of those injured on Tuesday gathered the following day.
Neighbors greeted each other and asked about each other’s relatives inside the hospital. Many were dressed in black.
Inside, nurses were turning away blood donors, telling them that so many people had come to donate on Tuesday that they didn’t need any more blood on Wednesday.
While Tuesday required a “Herculean effort” from Lebanese health services given the massive number of injured, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said hospitals were “managing” to cope with new injuries on Wednesday.
“We still have 140 patients in the hospital and some still need to be operated,” Salah Zeineldine, AUBMC’s chief medical officer, told Tel Aviv Tribune. “We have frozen all elective cases.”
Zeineldine stressed that of the 140 patients, several are still in critical condition, but none are in danger of death. “Many (of them) have lost fingers or eyes,” he said.
“Fear is the last thing on our minds.”
Many people present outside AUBMC on Wednesday did not want to speak to the media.
On a nearby sidewalk, Ali, 40, agreed to chat, explaining that he had come to the hospital to visit an injured man, without specifying his connection to them.
The day before, he was in the southern suburbs of Beirut when he heard a series of explosions. “Every five to 10 seconds, I heard another one,” he said.
Ali called Tuesday’s attack “stupid,” adding: “People are strong and fear is the last thing on our minds.”
At nearby Clemenceau Hospital, men lined up outside the main entrance, waiting to visit loved ones.
Witnesses said that while Beirut’s hospitals were busier than usual, they were much quieter than on Tuesday, when all medical staff were asked to report for work to help treat the deluge of patients.
A doctor who visited the emergency room at Mount Lebanon Hospital on Tuesday said the roads leading to the hospital were relatively empty – having been kept empty by authorities – but the area around the hospital was so crowded that they had to abandon their cars wherever they could.
When he arrived, the most serious, life-threatening injuries had already been transferred to the operating rooms, which were at full capacity.
The hospital was full of admitted patients, he said, three floors with at least 20 patients per floor.
He and other doctors began sorting through the cases, determining who needed urgent surgery to be scheduled, who needed antibiotics or tetanus shots, and who had injuries minor enough to be sent home.
All the patients he saw were men in their 30s with mild to moderate injuries, mainly to the face and hands.
“They weren’t pretty wounds,” the doctor said. “They were scary wounds, but the patients were all calm. They were saying, ‘Just finish me off and everything will be fine.’”
“They were calm…not scared or anxious.”
What happened and what’s next?
The attacks left many Lebanese uncertain about what would happen next.
Social media has been rife with debate over whether the attacks were impressively precise or indiscriminate and a violation of international law.
Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging near-daily cross-border attacks since last October, with Hezbollah saying it is fighting in support of Hamas and would stop firing if a ceasefire were reached in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel has stepped up talks about expanding the war against Hezbollah.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an expansion of Israel’s war aims to include returning families to their homes in the north, which many Israelis say can only be accomplished by fighting Hezbollah.
According to Israeli media, the top general of the Northern Command is pushing for a possible invasion of Lebanon. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that the war had entered “a new phase.”
For its part, Hezbollah has promised a response.
Speaking almost as the second attack took place, Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, said Israel had launched a “new confrontation” and that the response to Tuesday’s attack would be “special punishment.”