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according to xinhua news agency, on the afternoon of the 17th local time, during the ministerial meeting of the lebanese caretaker government, pager explosions occurred in beirut, the capital of lebanon, and in many places in southeastern and northeastern lebanon. lebanese minister of public health abyad said that the explosions have killed 9 people and injured about 2,800 people, of which about 200 are in critical condition.

the pager that exploded (source: cailian press)

the first explosion occurred at 3:45 p.m. local time on tuesday, followed by about a thousand pagers being detonated, and the wave of explosions lasted about an hour, according to reports.

it is reported that pagers are a closed communication system used by hezbollah members in lebanon, which is not easily vulnerable to hacker attacks and eavesdropping. recently, hezbollah members have been more commonly using this low-tech communication device to avoid israel tracking their location.

according to lebanese media reports, the batteries of these pagers were remotely detonated. relevant professionals believe that the explosion may be caused in two ways: one is through hacking, a large-scale cyber attack on thousands of pagers at the same time, causing their lithium batteries to short-circuit or overload, thus causing the explosion.

another possibility is that explosives were placed in the pagers in advance. according to qatar's al jazeera, citing a source from the lebanese security department, the batch of pagers that exploded this time was intercepted by the israeli intelligence and secret service (mossad) before being delivered to hezbollah in lebanon five months ago, and a trace amount of explosives less than 20 grams was placed in the pagers. however, as of now, the above information has been difficult to be fully confirmed.

however, some safety experts have questioned whether a pager battery explosion could cause so many casualties.

military expert du wenlong said in an interview that one possibility is that the pager was remotely controlled - virus software was implanted in the pager to give the software hard kill capabilities, and through the virus software, the device was caused to operate abnormally, causing overheating, overspeed, overload, etc., leading to hardware damage.

on september 17, in beirut, lebanon, people registered to donate blood for the injured in the paging device explosion. (photo source: xinhua news agency)

a large number of explosion videos on the internet show that the power of the pager explosion is not too great, but it is enough to cause injuries, with the injured parts mainly in the arms, abdomen and face.

lebanon's health ministry urged people to discard their pagers and warned hospitals to remain "highly alert" to meet the urgent need for emergency health services.

military analyst elijah magnier said that this batch of communications equipment had been modified before distribution to allow remote detonation, and that most of the equipment came from iran, which means that iran also needs to check all their products and equipment.

after verifying the available information, hezbollah believes that israel should bear full responsibility for a series of pager explosions in many places across lebanon and will be punished for it. hezbollah said it is conducting a "safety and scientific investigation" into the cause of the explosion.

ramy khoury, a prominent scholar at the american university of beirut, believes that the pager explosion is the "most dangerous incident" hezbollah has faced in many years, and this incident may mark the beginning of a larger operation. israel has been talking about eliminating the threat of hezbollah for months.

jimu news integrates xinhua news agency, cctv news, cailian news, china news service

(source: jimu news)

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