The funeral procession of four people who died a day earlier in pager blasts, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on 18 September. (Photo: Wael Hamzeh / EPA-EFE) 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to return tens of thousands of residents evacuated from northern border areas to their homes, amid mounting tension with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.
UN Security Council to meet over Lebanon pager blasts
The United Nations Security Council would meet on Friday over the pager blasts in Lebanon targeting militant group Hezbollah, said Slovenia’s UN ambassador, Samuel Zbogar, president of the 15-member council for September.
The meeting was requested by Algeria on behalf of Arab states, he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the pager blasts targeting Hezbollah indicated “a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon and everything must be done to avoid that escalation.
“Obviously, the logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a pre-emptive strike before a major military operation,” he told reporters ahead of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
He also said that it was very important not to weaponise civilian objects.
Guterres “urges all concerned actors to exercise maximum restraint to avert any further escalation,” said his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric.
Israel will return residents of north to their homes — Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to return tens of thousands of residents evacuated from northern border areas to their homes, amid mounting tensions with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
In a brief video statement, Netanyahu made no mention of the operation that remotely detonated thousands of pagers and hand-held radio devices used by operatives of Hezbollah, which has blamed the attack on Israel
“We will return the residents of the north securely to their homes,” he said in a brief video statement, giving no further details.
In separate remarks, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said more forces were being sent to the northern border, where Israel has been exchanging daily fire with Hezbollah for months, as the war moved into a new phase.
“The ‘centre of gravity’ is moving north, meaning that we are allocating forces, resources and energy for the northern arena,” he said in remarks released by his office.
The comments, which echo similar remarks by numerous senior Israeli politicians and military commanders over recent weeks, come as Israeli sources with knowledge of the matter said the army had moved its 98th Division, which includes commando and paratrooper formations, from Gaza to the north.
Israeli officials have not commented on the attacks on the Hezbollah communications devices over the past two days, which have killed more than 20 people and wounded thousands, but security sources have said Israel’s spy agency Mossad was responsible.
The operations, which appeared to throw Hezbollah into disarray, have heightened fears of an escalation in the fighting along Israel’s border with southern Lebanon with the risk of a full-blown regional war.
The fighting along the northern border has been going on for almost a year in the shadow of the war in Gaza, which began last year with the 7 October attack on Israel by the Islamist movement Hamas. The day after Hamas gunmen stormed through communities in southern Israel, Hezbollah launched a barrage in the north and there has been a near-daily exchange of fire between the two sides without ever tipping over into all-out war.
On Wednesday, Israeli army chief General Herzi Halevi held an assessment with commanders in the northern sector and approved defensive and offensive plans in the sector.
“We still have many capabilities that we have not yet activated,” he said in remarks to commanders that were released by the military.
“The rule is that every time we work on a certain stage, the next two stages are already ready to advance. At each stage, the price for Hezbollah must be high.”
Germany 'has stopped approving war weapons exports to Israel'
Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.
A source close to the ministry cited a senior government official as saying it had stopped work on approving export licences for arms to Israel due to legal and political pressure from legal cases arguing that such exports from Germany breached humanitarian law.
The Economy Ministry had not responded to requests for comment. However, the German government did issue a statement after the Reuters story was published.
“There is no German arms export boycott against Israel,” said government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit.
Last year, Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth €326.5-million, including military equipment and war weapons, a tenfold increase from 2022, according to data from the Economy Ministry, which approves export licences.
However, approvals have dropped this year, with only €14.5-million worth granted from January to 21 August, according to data provided by the Economy Ministry in response to a parliamentary question.
Of this, the weapons of war category accounted for only €32,449.
In its defence of two cases, one before the International Court of Justice and one in Berlin brought by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the government has said no weapons of war had been exported under any licence issued since the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel, apart from spares for long-term contracts, the source added.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since 7 October, according to the local Hamas-controlled health ministry. It has also displaced most of the population of 2.3 million, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court, which Israel denies.
But the issue has created friction within the German government as the Chancellery maintains its support for Israel while the Greens-led Economy and Foreign ministries, sensitive to criticism from party members, have increasingly criticised the Netanyahu administration.
Legal challenges across Europe have also led other allies of Israel to pause or suspend arms exports.
Britain this month suspended 30 out of 350 licences for arms exports to Israel due to concerns that Israel could be violating international humanitarian law.
In February, a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to halt all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns about their use in attacks on civilian targets in Gaza.
Hezbollah radios detonate in second day of explosions
Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south, in Beirut suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions by the group’s pagers.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 14 people had been killed and 450 injured on Wednesday, while the death toll from Tuesday’s explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.
At least one of Wednesday’s blasts took place near a funeral organised by Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country and wounded many of its fighters.
A Reuters reporter in the southern suburbs of Beirut said he saw Hezbollah members frantically taking batteries out of any walkie-talkies on them that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels.
Lebanon’s Red Cross said on X that it was responding with 30 ambulance teams to multiple explosions in different areas, including the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
Hezbollah, which was thrown briefly into disarray by the pager attacks, said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets, the first strike at its arch-foe since the blasts, which raised the prospect of a wider Middle East war.
Images of the exploded walkie-talkies examined by Reuters showed an inside panel labelled “ICOM” and “made in Japan”.
According to its website, ICOM is a Japan-based radio communications and telephone company.
The company has said that production of several models of the ICOM hand-held radio has been discontinued, including the IC-V82, which appeared to closely match those in images from Lebanon on Wednesday and which was phased out in 2014.
There was no immediate reply from ICOM to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The hand-held radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time as the pagers, said a security source said.
Israel’s spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of sophisticated operations on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.
Israel’s military has declined to comment on the blasts.
The plot appeared to have been many months in the making, several sources told Reuters. It followed a series of assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas commanders and leaders ascribed to Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
Hezbollah had turned to pagers and other low-tech communications devices in an attempt to evade Israeli surveillance of mobile phones.
Bernie Sanders bids to halt some weapons sales to Israel
US Senator Bernie Sanders said on Wednesday he would file legislation seeking to block the sale of offensive US weapons to Israel, citing the toll on civilians of Israel’s campaign against Hamas.
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he intended to file Joint Resolutions of Disapproval next week.
The US Arms Export Control Act gives Congress the right to stop a major foreign weapons sale by passing a resolution of disapproval. Although no such resolution has both passed Congress and survived a presidential veto, the law requires the Senate to vote if a resolution is filed and they have at times led to angry debates embarrassing to past presidents.
“Providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would violate US and international law,” said Sanders.
President Joe Biden has faced calls from his fellow Democrats throughout Israel’s campaign in Gaza to press Netanyahu’s government to ease the devastating humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave.
In his announcement, Sanders noted that the Biden administration last month approved arms sales to Israel totalling more than $20-billion that included systems tied to tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza. He said exporting such weapons would violate human rights provisions in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sanders’ announcement.
Hezbollah pager blasts test war readiness of Lebanon’s hospitals
When streams of bloodied people converged on Lebanon’s hospitals on Tuesday, it was a test of whether the crisis-hit health sector could cope with a mass casualty event like what could be expected in a wider war with Israel.
Frontline workers described hellish scenes: victims of thousands of small explosions linked to pagers used by militant group Hezbollah rushed in, some with organs protruding, others with faces missing eyes or hands missing fingers.
Lebanon has lurched from one crisis to another in recent years, including a 2019 financial collapse and the 2020 Beirut port blast, but Health Minister Firas Abiad said the sector had responded well, thanks in part to months of preparation.
“The response was good and most importantly, we were able to get care to those who needed it, especially for those with serious injuries,” he said in a news conference on Wednesday, noting the low number of deaths compared to injuries.
More than 2,700 people arrived at 20 Lebanese hospitals after the blasts, Abiad said, with some 300 in critical condition.
More than 400 surgeries were carried out on Tuesday, the majority for facial and eye injuries.
“Yesterday was a very big test. Could we be going towards bigger tests? I don’t know,” he said.
UN demands Israel end ‘unlawful’ presence in Palestinian territories
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a Palestinian-drafted resolution that demands Israel end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months.
The resolution received 124 votes in favour, while 43 countries abstained and Israel, the US and 12 others voted no.
The action isolates Israel days before world leaders travel to New York for their annual UN gathering. Netanyahu is due to address the 193-member General Assembly on 26 September, the same day as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The resolution welcomed a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements was illegal and should be withdrawn.
The advisory opinion — by the highest United Nations court, also known as the World Court — said this should be done “as rapidly as possible”, although the General Assembly resolution imposes a 12-month deadline.
The General Assembly resolution also called on states to “take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel ... where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
The resolution was the first to be formally put forward by the Palestinian Authority since it gained additional rights and privileges this month including a seat among UN members in the assembly hall and the right to propose draft resolutions.
Blinken warns against further escalation after Lebanon blasts
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday warned against the risk of escalation in the Middle East after the detonation of thousands of Hezbollah pagers threatened to derail his latest regional diplomacy push.
News of the blasts broke as the top US diplomat travelled to Cairo to meet senior Egyptian officials hoping to advance efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and improve ties with Egypt.
Asked about the blasts, Blinken said the US was still gathering facts but it was in no one’s interest for conflict to spread.
“It’s imperative that all parties refrain from any actions that could escalate the conflict,” Blinken said at a news conference alongside his Egyptian counterpart.
Blinken said he was focused on securing a ceasefire deal that would bring calm, including to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, and that 15 out of 18 paragraphs of a deal had been agreed by all sides. DM
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