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Survivors of Israel's pager attack on Hezbollah last year struggle to recover
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....urvivors of Israel's pager attack on Hezbollah last year struggle to recover<BR>PTI News<BR>Dated:- 6-8-2025<BR>PTI<BR>Bazourieh (Lebanon), Aug 6 (AP) Her head heavy with a cold, Sarah Jaffal woke up late and shuffled into the kitchen. The silence of the apartment was pierced by the unfamiliar buzzing of a pager lying near a table. Annoyed but curious, the 21-year-old picked up the device belonging to a family member. She saw a message: “Error,” then “Press OK.” Jaffal didn't have time to respond. She didn't even hear the explosion. “Suddenly everything went dark,” she said. “I felt I was in a whirlpool.” She was in and out of consciousness for hours, blood streaming from her mouth, excruciating pain in her fingertips.....
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.... At that moment on September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers distributed to the Hezbollah group were blowing up in homes, offices, shops and on frontlines across Lebanon, remotely detonated by Israel. Hezbollah had been firing rockets into Israel almost daily for nearly a year in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. After years of planning, Israel had infiltrated the supply chain of Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iran's armed proxies in the Middle East. It used shell companies to sell the rigged devices to commercial associates of Hezbollah in an operation aimed at disrupting the Iran-backed group's communication networks and harming and disorienting its members. The pager attack was stunning in its scope. It wounded more than 3,000....
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.... people and killed 12, including two children. Israel boasts of it as a show of its technological and intelligence prowess. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently presented US President Donald Trump with a golden pager as a gift. Human rights and United Nations reports, however, say the attack may have violated international law, calling it indiscriminate. Hezbollah, also a major Shiite political party with a wide network of social institutions, has acknowledged that most of those wounded and killed were its fighters or personnel. The simultaneous explosions in populated areas, however, also wounded many civilians like Jaffal, who was one of four women along with 71 men who received medical treatment in Iran. Hezbollah won't say....
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.... how many civilians were hurt, but says most were relatives of the group's personnel or workers in Hezbollah-linked institutions, including hospitals. Ten months later, survivors are on a slow, painful path to recovery. They are easily identifiable, with missing eyes, faces laced with scars, hands with missing fingers — signs of the moment when they checked the buzzing devices. The scars also mark them as a likely Hezbollah member or a dependent. Rare interviews For weeks after the attack, The Associated Press attempted to reach survivors, who stayed out of the public eye. Many spent weeks outside Lebanon for medical treatment. Most in the group's tight-knit community remained quiet while Hezbollah investigated the massive securit....
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....y breach. The AP also contacted Hezbollah and its association treating those affected by the attacks to see if they could facilitate contacts. The group, at war with Israel for decades, is also one of the most powerful political factions in Lebanon, with members holding nearly 10 per cent of parliament seats and two ministerial posts. It has its own security apparatus and offers extensive health, religious and other social and commercial services in southern and eastern Lebanon and parts of Beirut. The AP interviewed six people, including Jaffal and another woman, two 12-year-old children and two men, one a preacher, the other a fighter. All are family members of Hezbollah officials or fighters. All lost fingers. Shrapnel lodged und....
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....er their skin. The men were blinded. The women and children each lost one eye, with the other damaged. There were no minders present, and no questions were off-limits. Some declined to answer questions about the identity or role of the pager's owner, identifying them only as relatives. The hours of interviews offered a rare glimpse into the attack's human toll. Survivors described how the incessantly buzzing pagers exploded when picked up, whether they pressed a button or not. Some said their ears still ring from the blast. ”I've put up with so much pain I never imagined I could tolerate,” said Jaffal, a university graduate. The survivors expressed ongoing support for Hezbollah but acknowledged the security breach. They blamed I....
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....srael for their wounds. Rights groups have argued the attack was indiscriminate because the pagers detonated in populated areas, and it was nearly impossible to know who was holding the devices or where they were when they exploded. The preacher, Mustafa Choeib, recalled that his two young daughters used to play with his pager and he sometimes found it among their toys. Israel's Mossad spy agency declined to comment on AP questions about those allegations. But Israeli security officials have rejected that the attack was indiscriminate, saying the pagers were exclusively sold to Hezbollah members and that tests were conducted to ensure that only the person holding the pager would be harmed. A turning point for Hezbollah The pagers ....
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....were the opening strike in an Israeli campaign that would cripple Hezbollah. The day after the pager bombings, Hezbollah walkie-talkies exploded in another Israeli attack that killed at least 25 people and injured over 600, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Israel then launched a campaign of airstrikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and hundreds of other militants and civilians. The war ended with a ceasefire in November. Nine months later, Israel stunned and weakened Iran with a campaign of airstrikes that targeted Iranian nuclear sites, senior military officials and symbols of the Islamic Republic's grip. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has been left reeling. Besides the military blow, the group is left with the financial....
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.... and psychological burden of thousands who need long-term medical treatment and recovery. Pagers are widely seen as outdated, but they were a main part of Hezbollah's communication network. Nasrallah had repeatedly warned against cellphones. Israel could easily track them, he said. With old pagers breaking down, the group ordered new ones. Israel sold the rigged devices through shell companies. According to a Hezbollah official, the group had ordered 15,000 pagers. Only 8,000 arrived, and nearly half were distributed to members. Others destined for Lebanon were intercepted in Turkey days after the attack when Hezbollah tipped off officials there. Hezbollah's investigation into how its communications networks were infiltrated found t....
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....hat the purchase of the rigged pagers resulted from negligence, and its officials were cleared of suspicions of collaborating with Israel, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the probe. Some Hezbollah members had complained the new pagers were too bulky. Some didn't use them because batteries died quickly or heated up. 'Hospitals were like a slaughterhouse' The simultaneous explosions spread chaos and panic in Lebanon. Hospitals were overwhelmed. It was like a “slaughterhouse,” Zeinab Mestrah said. Until she reached a hospital, Mestrah thought an explosion in an electricity cable had blinded her, not the pager of a relative, a Hezbollah member. “People didn't recognise each other. Families were....
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.... shouting out their relatives' names to identify them,” she recalled from her home in Beirut. Doctors mainly stopped her bleeding. Five days later, the 26-year-old interior decorator and event planner travelled to Iran for treatment. Her right eye was saved, with shrapnel removed. The first thing she saw after 10 days of darkness was her mother. She also lost the tips of three fingers on her right hand. Her ears still ring today. Mestrah said her recovery has delayed plans to find a new career. She realizes she cannot resume her old one. The next thing she looks forward to is her wedding, to her fiance of eight years. “He is half my recovery,” she said. The representative of Hezbollah's Association of Wounded said none of ....
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....those injured has fully recovered. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to address the media. (AP) GRS GRS<BR> News - Press release - PIB....