TEHRAN: Iran accused Israel on Wednesday (Sep 18) of “mass murder” after paging devices belonging to the Tehran-aligned Hezbollah group in Lebanon exploded, killing 12 people and wounding up to 2,800 others.
Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement he “condemned the terrorist act of the Zionist regime … as an example of mass murder”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, posting on X, condemned what he called “Israeli terrorism”, following a phone call with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib.
Among those wounded in Tuesday’s pager blasts was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani, with Iranian media reporting he suffered injuries “to the hand and the face”.
State television said Amani was only slightly injured. The Iranian embassy in Beirut took to social media site X to deny “rumours about the physical condition and vision problems” of the ambassador.
His treatment was progressing well, it said.
The Iranian Red Crescent said on Wednesday it had dispatched “rescue teams and eye surgeons” to Lebanon to treat the wounded.
“If necessary, we are ready to transfer the seriously injured … to Iran for treatment,” the group’s chief Pirhossein Kolivand said, according to the official IRNA news agency.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the wave of explosions that killed nine people, including the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, and wounded between 2,750 and 2,800 others.
The blasts came hours after Israel said it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s Oct 7 attacks to include its fight against the group’s ally Hezbollah along the country’s border with Lebanon.
In his statement, Kanani expressed solidarity with the families of those killed and wounded in the explosions including the Iranian ambassador.
“Combating the terrorist acts of the (Israeli) regime and the threats arising from them is an obvious necessity,” he said.
“It is necessary for the international community to act quickly in order to counter the impunity of the Zionist criminal authorities.”
Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Saeid Iravani, said “the Israeli regime must be held responsible for this heinous crime”, IRNA reported.