DUBAI, September 20. /TASS/. The pagers that massively blew up in Lebanon on September 17 were actually used by hospital and kindergarten employees to receive alerts about air attacks from Israel, Iranian Ambassador to Beirut Mojtaba Amani said.
The Iranian ambassador was also injured in the pager explosion. While in a Tehran hospital, he was visited by Iran’s Government Spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani. "Amani said that all these pagers were used not for political, but for civilian purposes, they were handed out in hospitals, kindergartens, and other [institutions] only to inform about possible attacks by the Zionist regime (Israel - TASS)," the press service of Iran’s government reported.
Multiple explosions of communication devices occurred in Lebanon on September 17 and 18. On the first day, a large number of pagers blew up almost simultaneously in various regions of Lebanon. According to the country’s Health Ministry, 12 people, including two children, were killed, and 2,800 more were hospitalized. On the following day, a new wave of blasts swept across Lebanon. This time, walkie-talkies, phones, fingerprint scanners, as well as devices operating on solar and lithium-ion batteries exploded. At least 25 were killed and 608 were injured in the new attack. The pro-Iranian Shiite Hezbollah movement blamed Israel for plotting the attacks, with its leader Hassan Nasrullah calling these terrorist actions a "de facto declaration of war.".