Beirut, Sep 18 (EFE).- The death toll from a series of pager explosions in Lebanon rose to 12 on Wednesday, while some 1,800 of the more than 2,800 injured required hospital treatment, Public Health Minister Firas Abiad said.
Abiad said two children and four health workers in a hospital in southern Beirut were among the 12 people who were killed on Tuesday.
He explained that most of the 1,850 injured were in and around Beirut, while some 750 people were injured in the south of the country and another 150 in the eastern Bekaa Valley. Apart from the capital itself, all these areas are strongholds of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.
On Tuesday, the group confirmed that members of various Hezbollah units and institutions were carrying the pagers affected by the explosions, which have been widely attributed to Israel.
The pager explosions, which detonated almost simultaneously across southern Lebanon, come amid escalating cross-border violence since the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip began 11 months ago.
But Abiad added that civilians were also among the victims of the attack.
He said that just under 300 of the over 1,800 people injured are in critical condition, while about 460 have undergone surgery, mainly on their hands, including some amputations.
“The attack was massive, we had no idea and it happened suddenly (…) Hospitals received 70 to 80 patients all at once, it was a possibility that the health system would not be able to respond, but the emergency plan played an important role,” Abiad said.
He said the public health ministry has drawn up an emergency plan coordinated with the different hospitals in the country to deal with potential cases of mass casualties.
“It seems that Israel is moving towards escalation and we, as the Lebanese government, do not want war. What happened yesterday was a big test for the emergency plan we put in place in advance,” he added.
Abiad also confirmed that they have already received medical aid from Iraq, Iran and Jordan, and that some of the wounded have been transferred to Syria from Lebanon’s border areas or to Iran. EFE
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