Beirut - Washington: Europe and the Arabs - Agencies
Two American officials said that Israel did not inform the United States before the attack, on Tuesday, on communication devices used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon.
The American website (Axios) quoted the officials as saying that Israel did not inform the administration of US President Joe Biden before the intelligence operation that included blowing up the communication devices of thousands of Hezbollah members.
The explosions killed at least nine people, including a child, and injured 2,750 others, including many members of Hezbollah and its military units.
In turn, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the United States "was not aware of this operation and did not participate in it," adding that Washington "is still gathering information" about the explosions in Lebanon. He did not confirm that Israel was behind the attack.
An informed source reported that the operation was approved earlier this week during security meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, senior members of his government, and heads of the security services.
The attack came one day after US envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel and warned Netanyahu of the consequences of a major escalation in Lebanon. The source familiar with the case said that Israel carried out the operation in order to move its fight against Hezbollah to a new stage, while trying not to escalate to the level of a comprehensive war.
Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib said on Tuesday that his country is preparing for a major retaliatory response by Hezbollah against Israel for the "pager explosions", for which the government and Hezbollah held Tel Aviv responsible, while the Israeli Chief of Staff held a meeting with the General Staff to assess "the state of offensive and defensive readiness on all fronts."
Bou Habib considered in a phone call with the American newspaper "The New York Times" that "if Israel thinks that it will return the displaced residents of the north in this way, it is mistaken. This escalates the war."
Hsu Ching-Kwang, founder of the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, said that the pager devices that exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday "were not manufactured by the company." Hsu said - according to what was reported by the American Alhurra channel today, Wednesday - that the pagers that were exposed to the explosion "were manufactured by a company in Europe that has the right to use the trademark of the Taiwanese company."
The Ministry of Public Health in Lebanon denied yesterday that Dr. Firas Al-Abyad, the Lebanese Minister of Health, had provided statistical information to a media outlet in which he announced that the number of martyrs had risen to 11 and the wounded to four thousand, including four hundred critical cases.
The ministry renewed its call, which had been launched by the Minister of Public Health, in his press conference yesterday evening, Tuesday, in which he called for obtaining information from official sources in the ministry, whether from the press conferences held by the minister or from the statements issued by the Public Health Emergency Operations Center.
For her part, the United Nations Special Coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, expressed her regret for the attack that targeted various parts of Lebanon yesterday and resulted in the injury of thousands of people - many of them seriously - in addition to the loss of the lives of at least nine people, including children. According to the UN daily news bulletin, a copy of which we received this morning,

In a press release, the Special Coordinator reminded all concerned parties that civilians, under international humanitarian law, should not be a target and must be protected at all times. She said: "Without a doubt, the loss of a single civilian victim is unacceptable."

The press release said that yesterday's events represent a deeply worrying escalation in an unacceptably combustible context, and "while the impact of the attack is still unfolding, Hennis-Plasschaert urged all concerned parties to refrain from any further escalation or hostile rhetoric that could lead to a wider conflict that no party can afford."

The Special Coordinator stressed the urgent need to restore calm, and called on all concerned parties to make stability a top priority, saying that the risks would be very high if action was not taken in this direction.