What do we know about the coordinated attack on Hezbollah using pagers?

At least 12 people, including two children, have been killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members - including fighters and medics - detonated simultaneously across Lebanon.

Here's what we know so far about the pager blasts.

The blasts - when, where, and how big? 

The detonations started around 3:30 p.m. (1230 GMT) in the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh and the eastern Bekaa valley - strongholds of the anti-Israel militant group Hezbollah - and lasted around an hour.

According to security sources and video footage, some of the detonations took place after the pagers rang, causing the fighters to put their hands on them or bring them up to their faces to check the screens. In two separate clips from supermarket closed-circuit video, the blasts appeared only to wound the person wearing the pager or closest to it.

Video from hospitals shared on social media appeared to show individuals with injuries to their faces, missing fingers and gaping wounds at the hip where the pager was likely worn. Citing two members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, The New York Times reported that Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, lost one eye in one of the explosions.

Hospitals in Lebanon raced to treat a sudden surge of thousands of patients wounded in the coordinated attack. Minister of Public Health Dr Firass Abiad told reporters that about 200 of the wounded were in critical condition requiring surgery or admission to intensive care units. 

The blasts did not appear to cause major damage to buildings or start any fires.

Who made the pagers, who was behind the attacks, and why were pagers targeted?

Attention first focused on Taipei-based firm Gold Apollo, whose brand trademark appeared on the pagers. Gold Apollo insisted that the design and manufacturing of the products was "entirely handled" by Budapest-based BAC Consulting. BAC has not commented yet on the attacks. 

A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters that Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside 5,000 pagers (believed to be the AR-924 model) ordered by Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations.

Hezbollah fighters began using pagers, popular in the 1990s, in the belief they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters this year. Iran-backed Hezbollah said it was carrying out a "security and scientific investigation" into the causes of the blasts. 

Diplomatic and security sources speculated that the explosions could have been caused by the devices' batteries detonating, possibly through overheating. But others said that Israel might have infiltrated the supply chain for Hezbollah's pagers. Several experts who spoke with Reuters said they doubted the battery alone would have been enough to cause the blasts.

Israeli intelligence forces have previously placed explosives in personal phones to target enemies, according to Ronen Bergman's 2018 book Rise and Kill First. Hackers have also demonstrated the ability to inject malicious code into personal devices, causing them to overheat and explode in some instances.

What has been the international reaction?

• Lebanon's information minister said the attack was an assault on Lebanon's sovereignty.

• Israel's military has made no statement on the attacks and declined to respond to journalists' enquiries. 

• UN special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said the attack "marked an extremely concerning escalation" in the conflict.

• Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has offered assistance to the Lebanese people and affirmed Cairo's "steadfast support" to Lebanon.

• Russia warned that the attack could become a trigger for a wider regional conflict and that its perpetrators must be identified.

• The U.S. State Department said Washington was gathering information and was not involved.

• Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani "condemned the terrorist act of the Zionist regime … as an example of mass murder".

• Belgium's deputy PM Petra De Sutter said in a post on X: "I strongly condemn the massive terror attack in Lebanon and Syria, which injured thousands of people. A brutal escalation of violence." 

What are the implications for the Israel-Hezbollah conflict?

Analysts see the threat of escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, which have exchanged cross-border fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza last October.

But experts are more skeptical, for now, about the potential for triggering an imminent all-out Israel-Hezbollah war, which the U.S. has sought to prevent and which it believes neither side wants.

Matthew Levitt, former deputy director of the U.S. Treasury's intelligence office and author of a book on Hezbollah, said the pager explosions could disrupt its operations for some time.

Jonathan Panikoff, the U.S. government's former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, said Hezbollah might downplay its "biggest counterintelligence failure in decades" but rising tensions could eventually erupt into full-scale war if diplomacy continues to fall short.

Subscribe to Storyboard: A weekly newsletter bringing you the best of CGTN every Friday