(18 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut – 18 September 2024
++SOUNDBITES SEPARATED BY BLACK FRAMES, NO CUTAWAYS++
++STARTS ON SOUNDBITE++
1. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Firas Abiad, Lebanon’s caretaker Health Minister:
"The number of martyrs as of today is 12 martyrs including two children – a girl who was 8-years-old and a young man who was 11 years old – in addition to several health care workers who were also among the martyrs who have fallen. I repeat, the number of martyrs so far is 12 martyrs."
++BLACK FRAMES++
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Firas Abiad, Lebanon’s caretaker Health Minister:
"On the issue of the number of injured people, the number we gave yesterday and after we confirmed the numbers today – there were higher numbers emerging in the past few hours. And we’ve said that these numbers are inaccurate. The reason it is inaccurate is because some patients were being counted more than once – in the first hospital they reached and then another time in the hospital they were transferred to. The number of injured people so far is between 2,750 and 2,800 patients. We are still following up because we are getting the name of each patient and confirming their identities."
++BLACK FRAMES++
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Firas Abiad, Lebanon’s caretaker Health Minister:
"From those 2,750 patients, around 750 were in the southern area, around 150 were in the Beqaa area and around 1,850 were in the areas of Beirut and the southern (Beirut suburb of) Dahiyeh. When we went over the injuries, around 10% or under 300 patients were in critical conditions. Many of them remain – and today we were in a tour of the hospitals – many of them were in intensive care."
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Lebanon’s caretaker health minister said the death toll from the exploding pager attack which targeted members of Hezbollah has increased to 12 people, including two children and an unspecified number of healthcare workers.
Speaking at a briefing in Beirut, Firas Abiad said that two-thirds of the wounded needed hospitalisation.
In what appears to be a sophisticated, remote attack, pagers used by hundreds of members of Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday.
Abiad said the scale of the incident was far greater than the thousands wounded in the massive Beirut Port explosion in 2020.
Most of the wounded were in Beirut and its southern suburbs, Abiad added.
Tuesday’s attack — and the fact that Hezbollah blamed Israel — renewed fears that the two foes could lead to all-out war.
Despite periodic cycles of escalation, the two have carefully avoided that so far, but Israeli leaders have issued a series of warnings in recent weeks that they might escalate operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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