UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting over Lebanon pager explosions

The United Nations Security Council is set to convene an emergency meeting on Friday to address the recent string of pager explosions across Lebanon.

This development comes after Slovenia, the council’s current president, approved Algeria’s request for an emergency session.

The Lebanese government and Hezbollah are pointing fingers at Israel for the blasts, which have resulted in 21 deaths and over 3,000 injuries in just two days.

Also Read: Japanese electronics firm clarifies production timeline of pagers linked to Lebanon blasts

The latest wave of explosions on Wednesday claimed at least nine lives and injured more than 300 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Lebanon’s UN ambassador, Hadi Hachem, condemned the pager blasts as an “aggression which rises to a war crime,” cautioning that it would escalate the conflict.

These incidents are unfolding against the backdrop of heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, who have been engaged in cross-border warfare since October 7, following a Hamas attack. The conflict has already claimed over 41,000 lives, mostly women and children, in Gaza.

Earlier, the White House denied on involvement in the explosive attacks in Lebanon that targeted thousands of communication devices for two straight days.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby disclosed that the US was “not involved in yesterday’s incidents or today’s in any way.”

It is “too soon to know what these incidents are going to mean to the already high tensions between Israel and Hezbollah up at that border,” said Kirby.

“All I can tell you is, as recently as a couple of days ago, Amos Hochstein, our envoy, was in the region having discussions to do everything we can from a diplomatic perspective to prevent those tensions from escalating into all-out conflict,” he added.