(17 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sidon, Lebanon – 17 September 2024
1. Wide of man donating blood
2. Tilt up from machine to man donating blood
3. Various of nurse taking blood from donor
4. Mid of machine
5. Mid of Lebanese Red Cross volunteer shaking blood bag
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) no name given, blood donor:
“I think that this the least we can do, that one of us would give under these circumstances. And God heal all the injured."
7. Various of people donating blood
8. Various of blood bags
STORYLINE:
Blood banks have opened to help Lebanon’s hospitals in the aftermath of Tuesday’s deadly pager explosions.
The Lebanese Red Cross called for urgent blood donations after 2,750 were wounded — 200 of them critically — by the explosions, according Lebanon’s Health Minister Firas Abiad.
Abiad told Qatar’s Al Jazeera network that at least nine people were killed, including an 8-year-old girl.
Hospitals were overwhelmed with wounded patients – some with missing hands, faces partly blown away or gaping holes at their hips and legs near the pocket area, according to AP photographers.
The pagers, used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah, exploded all across Lebanon.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack.
Hezbollah said in a statement that two of its members were among those killed. One of them was Mahdi Ammar, the son of a Hezbollah member of parliament, and two sons of other prominent figures were wounded, said the Hezbollah official who spoke anonymously.
Among those wounded was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon.
The mysterious explosions came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.
The pagers that blew up had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members in February to stop using cellphones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence.
A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the pagers were a new brand, but declined to say how long they had been in use.
It appeared that many of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it was not immediately clear if others also carried the pagers.
The blasts were mainly in areas where the group has a strong presence, particularly a southern Beirut suburb and in the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official.
The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
The AP reached out to the Israeli military, which declined to comment.
AP video shot by Mustapha El baba
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