BEIRUT — Hospitals in Lebanon are packed with people whose hands and eyes have been dealt serious injuries. The streets, meanwhile, are fraught with panic about which communication device might explode next.
People in the capital, Beirut, and beyond are shaken by two days of stunning attacks, in which devices owned by the militant group and political party Hezbollah have suddenly and near-simultaneously exploded in homes, grocery stores and street corners. American and Lebanese officials say Israel was behind the blasts, which killed at least 37 people, including at least two children, and injured nearly 3,000 more.
The streets of Beirut appeared largely back to normal Thursday, but people NBC News spoke with expressed fear and concern. Some said they were not going to work, while some parents said they were keeping their schoolchildren at home, fearful that more devices might detonate, as the nation awaited signals of how Hezbollah might retaliate.
In a speech Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah referred to the “terrorist” attack as unprecedented, noting that the explosions of roughly 4,000 devices wounded civilians, not just Hezbollah members.
He went on to call it an act of war against Lebanon, but did not specify how or when Hezbollah would retaliate.
As the impact of the operation on Lebanon’s civilian population fueled growing criticism — from human rights officials and even a former CIA chief — doctors who spoke to NBC News described being overwhelmed by the scale and severity of the injuries.
“Most of the patients are very sick, with injuries to the eyes, to the hands,” said Dr. Salah Zeineldine of the American University of Beirut Medical Center. The facility’s surgical rooms have been operating nonstop since the attacks, he said in a video message sent via WhatsApp on Thursday.
Medical teams are exhausted, he said, and the hospital has had to put scheduled surgeries on hold.
Dr. Elias Jrade, an eye doctor in Beirut, also said that he had seen some of the worst cases involving injuries to both eyes and facial lacerations.
Most of the victims were young men, Jrade said, but he said they had also treated women and children.
The pagers and walkie-talkies were used by Hezbollah, which has exchanged months of escalating fire and threats with Israel that have displaced and killed civilians on both sides of the border — but the devices could have been in anyone’s possession when they exploded.
Although designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Israel, Hezbollah is also a political party in Lebanon, embedded in the country’s civilian structures. The group said Thursday 37 of its fighters have been killed since Tuesday, but it did not specify if they were killed in the device attacks or Israeli strikes that have been carried out in southern Lebanon for months.
That has contributed to criticism of the attacks, which Lebanon’s prime minister described as “technological war” Thursday as he urged the United Nations to act “to stop the Israeli aggression.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan told NBC’s “TODAY” show Thursday that detonating wireless devices was not an acceptable form of warfare because “there is no way the Israelis would have known who was going to have these pagers at the time,” calling it “almost a fire and forget” mechanism that Israel had employed.
The Lebanese army said Thursday that specialized units were detonating “pagers and suspicious communication devices in various areas,” warning the public to stay away from the blast sites and report any suspicious devices without approaching them.
There is a sense, Jrade said, that “people are trying to avoid everything” when it comes to electronic devices. “I think that’s become a national awareness,” he added.
Lama Fakih, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, who is in Beirut, told NBC News the atmosphere on the ground is tense.
“I think, on the one hand, people are concerned about what more may come. You know, was this a precursor to a broader attack, and what that might be for the civilian population,” Fakih said. “The way that the attack played out, it also has just created a lot of panic, because these devices did explode in populated civilian areas. So there’s this feeling that, you know, things could explode in and around me, if I’m going to the supermarket, if I’m walking down the street, there’s a general sense of insecurity.”
For many, the explosions also brought back painful memories of the deadly 2020 explosion at the Beirut port, when chemicals stored in a warehouse accidentally exploded, killing more than 200 people and devastated parts of the Lebanese capital, Fakih said. “So it was very triggering as well,” she added.
The attacks could constitute an international law violation because they did not distinguish between combatants and civilians, according to Fakih. “Whether or not this amounts to a war crime does require further investigation,” she said.
The United Nations human rights chief, Volker Türk, said Wednesday that the “fear and terror unleashed” by the attacks was profound, adding that “simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings” could violate international law.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Charlene Gubash reported from Beirut, Yuliya Talmazan from London and Shira Pinson from Tel Aviv.
