More blasts heard in Beirut as world leaders sound alarm over pager explosions’ ‘disregard’ for civilians – Middle East crisis live

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday that an Israeli airstrike on a school turned shelter killed five people, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Five martyrs and a number of wounded were recovered after the occupation targeted Ibn Al-Haytam school in the Shujaiya neighbourhood” of Gaza City, the agency said in a statement.

The Israeli military said the air force “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists” in a compound that “previously served as the ‘Ibn Al-Haytam’ school in the area of Gaza City”.

The military’s statement said Hamas fighters used the school “to plan and carry out terrorist activities against (Israeli) troops and the State of Israel”.

According to AFP, the military did not provide a death toll but said “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence”.

It is the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced Palestinians.

On Saturday the civil defence agency said five people were killed in a strike on Gaza City’s Shuhada al-Zeitun school, which the Israeli military said was also used by Hamas militants.

Another strike on the UN-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on 11 September drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where many thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter – a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.

Those responsible for a deadly wave of explosions across Lebanon targeting paging devices used by members of the Hezbollah militant group “must be held to account”, the UN high commissioner for human rights said on Wednesday.

“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 at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law,” Volker Türk said in a statement, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Reuters is reporting that Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets in the first cross-border attack since the Tuesday pager blasts.

Irish foreign minister Micheál Martin has said that the pager detonations in Lebanon showed a “wanton disregard” for the lives of civilians, and said it was a “logical conclusion” that Israeli forces were behind the incident. Israel has not claimed responsiblity for the attack, which injured nearly 3,000 people and killed at least 12 people, including two children.

The tánaiste said “The nature of the attack illustrates a wanton disregard for the lives of people because these pagers with explosives put into them went off in public areas and supermarkets and around people going out about their daily lives. It meant that many innocent civilians – men, women and children – were caught up in this.”

PA Media reports that asked if he considered it to be a breach of Geneva conventions rules on indiscriminate attacks, Martin replied: “In my view, yes, absolutely.”

Martin continued:

I would appeal to the Israeli Government to desist and not to engage in war in Lebanon and likewise to Hezbollah to desist and not to do anything to further escalate the situation. That kind of warfare and the creation of that terror in the midst of communities, commercial areas and normal human behaviour is unacceptable.

Earlier Ireland’s taoiseach Simon Harris said it was an “extraordinarily worrying development.”

He said:

What we have seen is significant explosions in civilian areas, including in a supermarket, and we’ve seen very distressing and upsetting scenes of civilians and children being caught up in the situation.

What the Middle East needs to see is de-escalation, not escalation, and as I get ready to go to the UN general assembly next week, that’s certainly the message that Ireland will be taking to that. We all must work to step back from the brink in terms of the Middle East.

Obviously a country’s rights to defend itself, a country’s rights to address terrorism, is a legitimate right, but when explosives are being detonated, civilians being impacted, and take place in locations with many many civilians, it’s extraordinarily concerning.

The EU’s top diplomat has described the pager detonations in Lebanon as “extremely worrying”, and said they had caused “heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians.”

In a statement, Josep Borrell said:

Following yesterday’s series of explosions in Lebanon, I called the Lebanese foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib. He briefed me on the explosion of a high number of electronic devices in many areas across the country. Thousands of people were injured – hundreds in critical condition – hospitals are collapsing.

Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians: several children are among the victims

I consider this situation extremely worrying. I can only condemn these attacks that endanger the security and stability of Lebanon, and increase the risk of escalation in the region.

The European Union calls on all stakeholders to avert an all-out war, which would have heavy consequences for the entire region and beyond.

Lebanon’s state national news agency reports that according to health ministry statistics among the near 3,000 people injured after the pager detonations yesterday, 1,800 people were hospitalised, and 460 required surgery for severe injuries.

Caretake health minister Firas Abiad said that while some patients are being evacuated to Syria and potentially Iran, 92% of cases will be treated within Lebanon.

Lili Bayer in Brussels and Michael Safi report for the Guardian:

The CEO of a Hungarian entity which a Taiwanese company said it had authorised to produce and sell pagers has denied making the devices, saying she was just an “intermediate.”

Gold Apollo, a Taiwan-based company, said in a statement today that it had a partnership with the Budapest-based BAC Consulting KFT, and had authorised BAC “to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC.”

“Regarding the AR-924 pager model mentioned in the recent media reports, we clarify that this model is produced and sold by BAC. Our company only provides the brand trademark authorization and is not involved in the design or manufacturing of this product,” it added.

BAC Consulting was registered in Hungary in 2022 and provided a Budapest address on its website – the same address used by multiple companies.

On its website, which was live early Wednesday but later became unavailable, BAC Consulting provided long yet vague descriptions of its work.

“With over a decade of consulting experience, we are on an exciting and rewarding journey with our network of passionate experts with a hunger for innovation and discovery for the Environment, Innovation & Development, and International Affairs,” according to the company’s LinkedIn page.

Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono presents herself on LinkedIn as the CEO of the company. Her LinkedIn page describes her as a native speaker of both Hungarian and Italian.

Bársony-Arcidiacono and BAC Consulting did not respond to questions from the Guardian. Reached by phone, Bársony-Arcidiacono asked how the paper got the number and then hung up.

However, she confirmed to NBC that her company worked with Gold Apollo.

Asked about the pagers and the explosions, Bársony-Arcidiacono said: “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong.”

Asked about the Hungarian company, EU foreign affairs spokesperson Peter Stano said at a press conference on Wednesday: “let’s not jump to conclusions at this stage.”

“The reasons and how it was done, how it was organised, needs to be investigated,” he said.

Asked about the CEO’s claim on LinkedIn that she also works for the European Commission, a spokesperson said “she is not a staff member, never been.”

Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty has ruled out his country accepting any changes to the agreed border security arrangements with Gaza, including the operation of the Rafah crossing.

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu appears in recent weeks to have made continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a ribbon of land about nine miles (14km) in length and 100 metres wide along Gaza’s border with Egypt which includes the Rafah crossing, a condition of any ceasefire agreement. It was seized by Israel in May this year as its Gaza ground offensive pushed into Rafah.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has stated that 15 out of 18 paragraphs of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas have been agreed, and insisted that progress on negotiations had been made during the last few weeks, despite there being no respite in Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, or any sign of the impending release of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas.

Speaking in Cairo, where he described Egypt as a critical partner in the ceasefire negotiations, Blinken said closing the gap on the last three paragraphs was a matter of “political will”.

Secretary of state Antony Blinken has said that the US did not know about the pager explosions in Lebanon in advance, and said his country was still gathering the facts about the blasts.

Speaking in a joint appearance in Cairo with Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty, Blinken cautioned everyone in the region to avoid taking steps that could escalate the conflict.

Yesterday nearly 3,000 people were injured and 12 killed, including two children, by the detonation of pagers inside Lebanon. The attack, which appears to have been chiefly aimed at Hezbollah operatives, has been widely attributed to Israel. Israel has not claimed responsibility, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government seldom comments on Israeli operations carried out outside its borders.