LEBANON: ESTABLISH INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO DEADLY ATTACKS USING EXPLODING PORTABLE DEVICES

Should Israel be determined to be responsible, then these attacks took place in the context of an ongoing armed conflict. The evidence indicates that those who planned and carried out these attacks could not verify who else in the immediate vicinity of the devices would be harmed at the time of the explosion, or even whether only fighters had been given the pagers and radios

An international investigation must be established to hold perpetrators of the simultaneous mass explosions targeting electronic devices across Lebanon and Syria, which injured more than 2,931 people and killed at least 37, including at least four civilians, accountable, said Amnesty International ahead of a UN Security Council meeting today to discuss the explosions.

Should Israel be determined to be responsible, then these attacks took place in the context of an ongoing armed conflict. The evidence indicates that those who planned and carried out these attacks could not verify who else in the immediate vicinity of the devices would be harmed at the time of the explosion, or even whether only fighters had been given the pagers and radios. Therefore, the attacks were carried out indiscriminately, would be unlawful under international humanitarian law and should be investigated as war crimes. The attacks also violated at a minimum the right to life under international human rights law, which continues to apply in situations of armed conflict, and likely other human rights, depending on the various impacts of the attack on the Lebanese population and their daily lives. 

Although the Israeli government has not officially commented on the attacks, on 18 September, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that a “new era” of war with Lebanon is beginning and praised the “excellent achievements” of the Israeli security and intelligence, a statement which has been interpreted as an implicit acknowledgement of Israel’s role in the attacks. The Lebanese authorities and US officials have also indicated they believe Israel orchestrated the attacks.

The mass explosions across Lebanon and Syria in recent days bear the hallmarks of a sinister dystopian nightmare. Using hidden explosive devices concealed within everyday telecommunications devices to wage deadly attacks on such a scale is unprecedented.

Aya Majzoub, Deputy MENA Director

“The mass explosions across Lebanon and Syria in recent days bear the hallmarks of a sinister dystopian nightmare. Using hidden explosive devices concealed within everyday telecommunications devices to wage deadly attacks on such a scale is unprecedented. Even if the attacks intended to target military objectives, detonating thousands of devices simultaneously without being able to determine their exact location or whose possession they were in at the time of the attack demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the right to life and for the laws of armed conflict,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks – meaning attacks that fail to distinguish between civilians and military targets. It also prohibits the use of the type of booby-traps that appear to have been used in these attacks.

“The UN Security Council should take all the measures at its disposal to ensure protection of civilians and avoid more needless suffering. An international investigation must urgently be set up to establish the facts and bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Explosions took place in supermarkets, cars, residential streets and other busy public areas causing traumatic injuries, spreading widespread terror and panic across Lebanon and overwhelming a healthcare sector already impacted by an acute economic crisis.

Amnesty International spoke to eight witnesses, the Lebanese Minister of Health, two medical doctors, two psychologists and a security source. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab analyzed 19 photos and videos from the explosions and their aftermath. Amnesty International’s Secretariat has written to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting their responses to the allegations that Israel was responsible for the attacks.

Applicable international law

Should Israel be determined to be responsible, then these attacks took place in the context of an ongoing armed conflict. As such, their lawfulness must be assessed on the basis of international humanitarian law, as well as applicable international human rights law, which continues to apply in situations of armed conflict. This applies in particular to the right to life, as confirmed by the UN Human Rights Committee.

The reliance on routine tools of civilian daily life for the explosions, the impossibility of the perpetrators to have known the identity of all those who received the devices, who would be using them and who would be near them – all of these factors indicate that the attacks were indiscriminate and therefore unlawful. As such, they should be investigated as war crimes.

International humanitarian law also prohibits the use of booby-traps or other devices which employ a device “in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material”, according to Amended Protocol II to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

Customary international law further prohibits acts of violence primarily aimed at spreading terror among the civilian population.

The International Court of Justice, the Human Rights Committee, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights have all confirmed that human rights treaty obligations apply in principle to the conduct of a state outside its territory. 

Attacks

Between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm on 17 September 2024, hidden explosive devices within thousands of pagers across Lebanon detonated, killing at least 12, including a nine-year-old girl, an 11-year-old boy and two medics, and injuring at least 2,323. The next day, just before 5 pm on 18 September, similar explosive devices within scores of hand-held “walkie-talkies” exploded across Lebanon, killing at least 25 people and injuring at least 608.

These attacks have taken place amid an escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah over the past 11 months.

As of 9 September 2024, Israeli attacks on south Lebanon and the Bekaa have killed at least 137 civilians, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health and the United Nations. Over 113,000 people have been displaced from south Lebanon due to the ongoing hostilities. According to the Israeli authorities, Hezbollah and other armed groups have fired projectiles at northern Israel and killed 14 civilians. 12 children were killed on 27 July in an attack on Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel blamed Hezbollah, but Hezbollah has denied responsibility. Around 60,000 residents of northern Israel have been evacuated since 8 October. Attacks which do not distinguish between civilians and military targets are indiscriminate. When such attacks kill or injure civilians they constitute war crimes.

Pager explosions, 17 September:

Witnesses described to Amnesty International how the attacks caused confusion and fear among the civilian population. A resident of the southern city of Sour (Tyre), said she saw people running as blood flowed on the street. Everyone she spoke to had a different explanation for the events. A waiter told her that a man ordered a coffee and then shot himself in his car. Another person told her someone’s car battery exploded. A third said that something exploded in one man’s hands. A few minutes later, a man told her that pagers are exploding. “It was a state of panic in every sense of the word. I still cannot comprehend it. It’s as if we are watching an episode of Black Mirror (a dystopian British TV series), these things aren’t supposed to happen,” she said.

Another witness who was shopping in the southern Beirut suburb of Borj al-Barajne when she saw women and children screaming and running, described the scenes as apocalyptic. “People were running all around me, but my legs couldn’t move,” she said. She later saw young men lying on the ground and dozens of ambulances arriving.

People were running all around me, but my legs couldn’t move

A witness to a pager explosion in Beirut

Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab analyzed 12 videos showing the pagers exploding in crowded civilian areas, such as residential streets and grocery stores, as well as in people’s homes. A verified video of the skyline of Beirut show large smoke plums over at least 10 locations in residential areas.

Lebanon’s Minister of Health, Dr. Firas Abiad, described the attacks as “the epitome of indiscriminate attacks” adding many caused “life-changing injuries”.

One witness confirmed to Amnesty International media reports stating the pagers beeped before detonating causing some people to bring them up to their faces to check the screens. A mechanic in Sour described how a friend’s pager started beeping: “He took it in his hands, I was looking at it, and it said ERROR. I turned around to get my cigarettes, and I was still right next to him, and then the pager exploded. He lost his hand and both his eyes.”

Evidence available to Amnesty International indicates that the pagers were not only distributed to Hezbollah fighters but were likely also distributed to employees of Hezbollah institutions that work in civilian capacities. Hezbollah said in a statement issued on 17 September that the pagers belonged to “employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions.”  The Health Minister told the organization that at least four healthcare workers sustained serious injuries in the attacks. Two of them, nurse Atta al-Dirani, and a medic at the Rasoul Azam Hospital. Mohammad Bilal Kanj, died as a result of their wounds.

Amnesty International also spoke to the employee of a non-profit who said that two of its workers, responsible for organizing community outreach programs in the southern suburbs of Beirut and in the south, owned these pagers and were injured when they exploded. 

Dr. Georges Ghanem, Chief Medical Officer of the Lebanese American University Medical Center, said the hospital was flooded with injured patients requiring the same expertise: “Everybody had injuries to their hands, lots of amputations, and eye problems that are non-salvageable…One of those who died was an 11-year-old boy. He had major brain injuries. He was with his father, who had the pager.” 

Dr. Salah Zeineddine, the Chief Medical Officer of the American University of Beirut Hospital also said all the patients admitted had sustained multiple injuries including to the face, hands and lower abdomen and waistline injuries.

An ophthalmologist at Mount Lebanon University Hospital in Beirut told the media that between 60-70% of the patients he treated had to have at least one eye removed. “Some of the patients, we had to remove both eyes. It kills me. In my past 25 years of practice, I’ve never removed as many eyes as I did yesterday [referring to 17 September],” he said.

Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab analyzed images of the destroyed pagers, and said they were consistent with AR-924 Gold Apollo Rugged pagers. A security source told Amnesty International that Hezbollah had ordered around 5,000 of these pagers earlier this year.

It is likely that the attack was carried out using a small remotely controlled explosive device hidden in a modified batch of pagers. The blasts in the videos are consistent with the detonation of the small amount of explosives that could be contained within such small electronic devices.

Walkie-Talkie explosions, 18 September:

On 18 September, just before 5pm, more electronic devices simultaneously detonated across the country, with reports of explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut, cities and towns in southern Lebanon, and in the Bekaa.

Video verified by Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab show large smoke plumes, indicating that the explosions resulting from those devices were bigger than those caused by the pagers that detonated, setting entire residential apartments and shops on fire. The Lebanese Communications

Ministry said that the devices that exploded are IC-V82 handheld radios, or walkie-talkies, made by a Japanese firm, but that the model had been discontinued and the devices were not officially licensed. Images of the exploded devices reviewed by the Evidence Lab were consistent with IC-V82 walkie-talkies. A security source told Reuters that these handheld radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time as the pagers.

I put my phone at home, I didn’t open a laptop, I became paranoid. Anything that connects me to the Internet, I don’t want to touch

Resident in Beirut

At least two explosions were heard as hundreds of men, women, children and older persons gathered for the funeral of four individuals, including a child and a medic, killed by the pager detonations the day before. Amnesty International spoke with three witnesses who were at the funeral in Ghobeiry, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, who described people running and screaming. One witness told Amnesty International that someone in the crowd was yelling: “it exploded in his hand!”

The Lebanese Civil Defense said its personnel worked to extinguish fires that broke out in 60 homes and shops, 15 cars and dozens of motorcycles following the explosion of the walkie-talkies.

These attacks have compounded the fear and trauma of a Lebanese population already facing the looming threat of an escalation of war with Israel.

Joseph el-Khoury, a consultant psychiatrist, said the attacks could have a long-lasting impact: “These attacks terrorized the city…and is a continuation of the [Israeli jet] flyovers and sonic booms… Whoever did that did not care about the mental health of an entire population.”

One resident told Amnesty International: “I put my phone at home, I didn’t open a laptop, I became paranoid. Anything that connects me to the Internet, I don’t want to touch. I also don’t want a motorcycle to pass by me, I don’t want people next to me. Because if they have a device, I am gone with them.”