BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding some 2,800 in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the wave of explosions, which came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks to include its fight against Hezbollah along its border with Lebanon.

The blasts “killed nine people, including a girl”, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said.

He added that 200 of the 2,800 hurt were critical with injuries mostly to the face, hands and stomach.

The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, the family and a source close to the group said.

A son of Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar was also among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut was wounded in a pager explosion but his injuries were not serious, Iranian state media reported.

The influx of so many casualties all at once overwhelmed hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds.

At one hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an AFP correspondent saw people being treated in a car park on thin mattresses, with medical gloves on the ground and ambulance stretchers covered in blood.

“In all my life I’ve never seen someone walking on the street… and then explode,” said Musa, a resident of the southern suburbs, requesting to be identified only by his first name.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert denounced in a statement “an extremely concerning escalation”, urging all sides to refrain from any action “which could trigger a wider conflagration that nobody can afford”.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the blasts and warned it would be punished.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” the group said in a statement, adding that Israel “will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression”.

The United States, Israel’s top arms provider and close ally, was “not involved” and “not aware of this incident in advance”, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

The afternoon blasts hit Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon and dealt a heavy blow to the militant group, which already had concerns about the security of its communications after losing several key commanders to targeted air strikes in recent months.

A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, told AFP that “the pagers that exploded concern a shipment recently imported by Hezbollah of 1,000 devices” which appear to have been “sabotaged at source”.