Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Nine killed as Hezbollah pagers explode
Hundreds of telecommunication devices used by the group explode simultaneously in different parts of Lebanon as fears of wider war surge.
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- At least nine people, including a girl, have been killed and 2,750 wounded in simultaneous explosions of pagers used by Hezbollah members across Lebanon.
- The Lebanese group says it holds Israel “fully responsible” for the deadly blasts.
- There has been no immediate comment by Israel, which has been exchanging fire with Hezbollah since the start of the war on Gaza in October.
- Israeli attacks have killed more than 11,000 students in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank since October 7, the Palestinian Education Ministry says.
- At least 41,252 people have been killed and 95,497 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. In Israel, the number of those killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 was at least 1,139 while more than 200 people were taken captive.
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For a deeper understanding of how hundreds of pagers belonging to the Lebanese group Hezbollah simultaneously exploded across Lebanon, read our explainer, here.
The United States downplayed its ability to prevent a broader Middle East war after Lebanon’s pager blast. Read more, here.
And you can always find all our latest coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, here.
Here’s what happened today
We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s main developments:
- At least nine people were killed and 2,750 wounded in simultaneous explosions of handheld pagers used by Hezbollah members across Lebanon.
- The Lebanese group says it holds Israel “fully responsible” for the deadly blasts, while Lebanon’s cabinet also blamed Israel. There has been no immediate comment by Israel.
- Israel’s war cabinet agreed to expand its Gaza war objectives to include the “safe return of the residents of the north [of Israel] to their homes”, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
- At least 22 Palestinians were killed in various Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip, according to the Civil Defence agency.
- The Palestinian Education Ministry said 11,001 students were killed and 17,772 injured in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank since the start of Israel’s war on October 7.
- People in Gaza are only eating an average of one meal per day as the Israeli army blocks 83 percent of food aid needed from reaching the besieged enclave, aid organisations said.
Can Iran restore deterrence against Israel while avoiding all-out war?
Two weeks after the assassination of Hamas’s politburo head Ismail Haniyeh, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: “Non-tactical retreat leads to the wrath of God.”
He was speaking to officials amid international speculation about whether Iran would respond to the killing in its capital that it has blamed on Israel.
Tehran faces a stark choice: It needs to restore deterrence while avoiding regional war with Israel.
Read the full story here.
Unlikely pager batteries alone caused deaths and injuries
Experts were mystified by the explosions in Lebanon but some doubted the battery itself would have been enough to cause the blasts.
Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium-ion battery safety at Newcastle University, said the level of damage caused by the pager blasts seemed inconsistent with known cases of such batteries failing in the past.
“What we’re talking about is a relatively small battery bursting into flames. We’re not talking of a fatal explosion here. I’d need to know more about the energy density of the batteries, but my intuition is telling me that it’s highly unlikely,” he said.
SMEX, a Lebanese digital rights organisation, said Israel could have exploited a weakness in the device to cause it to explode. It said the pagers could also have been intercepted before reaching Hezbollah and either tampered with electronically or implanted with an explosive device.
Israeli intelligence forces have previously placed explosives in personal phones to target enemies. Hackers have also demonstrated the ability to inject malicious code into devices, causing them to overheat and explode in some instances.
Hundreds of ambulances and medics involved after Lebanon attacks
The Lebanese Red Cross says it provided 150 units to hospitals across Lebanon through its blood banks and said centres are accommodating those who still wish to donate, after simultaneous explosions of pagers across Lebanon killed nine people and wounded more than 2,700 others.
The Red Cross said it responded with “130 ambulances and more than 500 EMTs” (emergency medical technicians), shortly after the incident.
In a post on X, it shared a video of ambulances and volunteer medics.
#LebaneseRedCross volunteers responding to the latest bombings in #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/WQjJt0zFEe
— Lebanese Red Cross (@RedCrossLebanon) September 17, 2024
Airlines halt Middle East flights over Israel, Lebanon tensions
British Airways has suspended flights to Israel for Wednesday. Air France announced it’s suspending flights connecting Paris with Beirut and Tel Aviv through Thursday because of security concerns.
German airline group Lufthansa also said it’s suspending all flights to Tel Aviv and Tehran through to Thursday, as tensions in the region soar following pager explosions across Lebanon.
“Due to the recent change in the security situation, the Lufthansa Group airlines have decided to suspend all connections to and from Tel Aviv [TLV] and Tehran [IKA] with immediate effect,” it said in a statement. “This applies up to and including September 19. During this period, the Israeli and Iranian airspace will also be bypassed by all Lufthansa Group Airlines.”
Lufthansa added that it was closely monitoring the situation and “will assess it further in the coming days”.
UN to vote on ending Israel’s ‘unlawful presence’ in Gaza, West Bank
Palestinians appealed to the UN General Assembly to vote for a resolution calling for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory.
“Please stand on the right side of history with international law, with freedom, with peace. The alternative is what you witness every day on your TV screens and what the Palestinian people are enduring in their flesh,” said Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s envoy to the UN.
“Those who think the Palestinian people will accept a life of servitude, a life of apartheid, are the ones who are not being realistic,” he said. “Those who claim that peace is possible in our region without a just resolution for the question of Palestine are the ones who are not being realistic.”
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon sharply criticised the move, describing it as “an attempt to destroy Israel through diplomatic terrorism”.
“We gather here to watch the Palestinians’ UN circus – a circus where evil is righteous, war is peace, murder is justified and terror is applauded,” Danon said. “How dare you continue this tradition of passing one-sided resolutions against Israel without even posing to consider what the Israeli people have endured.”
Hezbollah has lost ‘significant amount of its military capability’
David Des Roches, a professor with the National Defense University, called the deadly mass blasts in Lebanon “a significant coup” against Hezbollah.
“What it shows is that Hezbollah is thoroughly riddled with Israeli sources. The main thing here is [that] individual Hezbollah fighters will no longer trust Hezbollah equipment, so what you’ve got is a step back in communications. Hezbollah fights as a networked organisation and that requires pretty good real-time communications. They’re not going to have that any more,” Des Roches told Al Jazeera.
Now would be a good time to attack Hezbollah with a large number of its members incapacitated and communications down.
“But so far, we haven’t seen an indication of that, so it could be more limited than a military operation would suggest,” he added. “Hezbollah loses a significant amount of it’s military capability because of the compromise of its communications.”
Syria condemns ‘new bloody crime’ in Lebanon
Syria expressed solidarity with the Lebanese people and says it “stands by their side in their right to defend themselves”.
The series of pager blasts, it said, reflects “Israel’s desire to expand the scope of the war and its thirst to shed more blood,” in the region, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.
It called on nations to “unequivocally condemn this aggression”.
Israeli army tells public to exercise vigilance after Lebanon attacks
The Israeli army urged its citizens to exercise caution after Hezbollah promised retaliation for a series of deadly handheld pager explosions across Lebanon.
“The Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi held a situational assessment this evening with the participation of the General Staff Forum, focusing on readiness in both offence and defence in all arenas,” the military said in a statement.
“At this time there is no change to the Home Front Command defensive guidelines. The public is asked to remain alert and vigilant, and any change in policy will be updated immediately.”
WATCH: What does Hezbollah actually want?
Lebanon’s Hezbollah is one of the most powerful militias in the world.
If Hezbollah and Israel go to war, it could cause unprecedented destruction. But why would this happen, and how did Israel help give rise to Hezbollah in the first place?
Two killed in attack on Gaza City neighbourhood
Gaza’s Civil Defence agency says its teams pulled the bodies of two Palestinians from the rubble of a home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood after an Israeli attack.
At least eight others were wounded, it added. This brings the total number of Palestinians killed across Gaza today to 22.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since October 2023. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Israeli tanks fire on Gaza aid convoy: WHO boss
The World Health Organization chief says Israeli tanks fired on an aid convoy cleared to travel back from war-ravaged northern Gaza.
“Last Saturday, on the way back from a mission to the northern Gaza [Strip] and after a WHO-led convoy got clearance and crossed the coast road checkpoint, the convoy encountered two Israeli tanks,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“Shots were fired from the tanks near the convoy. Luckily nobody was hurt. This is unacceptable.”
The incident came just a week after the United Nations said a convoy carrying workers for a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza had been held at gunpoint at an Israeli military checkpoint.
Last Saturday, on the way back from a mission to the northern #Gaza and after a @WHO-led convoy got clearance and crossed the coast road checkpoint, the convoy encountered two Israeli tanks. Shots were fired from the tanks near the convoy. Luckily nobody was hurt.
This is… pic.twitter.com/jDstTVatyv
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) September 17, 2024
How did Hezbollah’s pagers explode in Lebanon?
Casualty numbers are still being confirmed. One eight-year-old girl has been confirmed among the nine dead.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera: “About 2,750 people were injured … more than 200 of them critically” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands and stomach.
Israel has been widely blamed for the spate of attacks, though it hasn’t yet commented. So how did this happen?
Read the full story here.
‘Hezbollah is a completely different echelon of fighting capability’
Israel’s Mossad is “highly likely” to be behind the spate of attacks throughout Lebanon, says Colin Clarke, director of research at The Soufan Group.
“This is about re-establishing the Mossad brand, if you will. After October 7, that brand was damaged significantly. This vaunted, ubiquitous, all-knowing intelligence agency proved to be vulnerable,” Clarke told Al Jazeera.
“What we saw today with the pagers exploding could very well be a prelude to a broader conflict in the Middle East. Many analysts have warned the fight in the north is going to look totally different than what the Israelis encountered in Gaza. And let’s be honest, they’ve struggled to deal with Hamas,” Clarke said.
“Hezbollah is a completely different echelon of fighting capability. Pound for pound, it’s probably the most sophisticated non-state actor in the world. You’re waging a multi-front campaign then, and this will put intensive pressure on the Israelis.”
At least 20 killed across Gaza so far today
Palestinian Civil Defence agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal says at least 12 people have been killed in three separate attacks in northern Gaza City.
At least seven people died in two separate attacks in Gaza’s central area. And the body of one person has been retrieved from Rafah, in Gaza’s south, he said.
Bassal also reported several injuries across the Gaza Strip, without providing exact figures.
UN special coordinator denounces Lebanon attacks
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert says she deplores the attacks across Lebanon, warning they “marked an extremely concerning escalation”.
Earlier, pagers used by Hezbollah detonated in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, wounding 2,750 people and killing at least nine, including a girl.
Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after the Hamas attacks on October 7, which sparked Israel’s war on Gaza.
Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily, coming close to a full-blown war on several occasions and forcing tens of thousands on both sides of the border to evacuate their homes.
Harris calls for end to war in Gaza, no Israeli reoccupation
US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris calls for an end to the Israeli war on Gaza and says Israel must not reoccupy the besieged Palestinian enclave once the nearly year-old conflict is over.
Speaking in Philadelphia to the National Association of Black Journalists, she called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a two-state solution and Middle East stability in a way that does not empower Iran.
“We’ve made ourselves very clear this deal needs to get done in the best interest of everyone in the region,” Harris, the US vice president, said in response to questions asked by reporters.
Pagers that exploded were a new brand: Hezbollah official
The communication devices that blew up in Lebanon and Syria had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members in February to stop using mobile phones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence.
An unnamed Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the pagers were a new brand but declined to say how long they had been in use.
Experts said the pager explosions point to a sophisticated, long-planned operation possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the pagers with explosives before they were imported to Lebanon.
Stop forcible transfer of Palestinian herding communities: UN
The UN Human Rights Office has denounced the ongoing Israeli settler attacks and harassment of the community of al-Muarrajat, one of the last two remaining Palestinian Bedouin communities between Ramallah and Jericho.
The attacks, the OHCHR said, are being perpetrated with the complicity of Israeli forces. It cited an incident yesterday where Israeli settlers attacked the primary school in al-Muarrajat and nearby homes for hours.
“They assaulted teachers, pupils, and activists present in the village as protective presence with sticks and iron bars. Nine Palestinians were injured during the attack, including three Palestinian women who sustained hairline fractures, four women teachers and a foreign activist,” the OHCHR said.
It also said that when Israeli forces arrived, instead of stopping the attack, they arrested the school principal and another community member.
“These assaults are taking place within a concerted attack on the community, calculated to force them to leave their land and homes. The attack on the al-Muarrajat community follows the recent forcible displacement of other tens of long-standing Bedouin communities from the Jordan Valley.”
More than 1,600 Palestinians from herding and farming communities have been forced to leave their homes since October 7 following settler violence and systematic restrictions on access to water, grazing land and basic needs, with the collusion of Israeli authorities, it said.