Lebanon’s Red Cross said it deployed 30 ambulances across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in response to the walkie-talkie explosions.

Meanwhile, the country’s civil defense force said teams worked to put out fires “inside homes, cars and shops” that were ignited by the blasts.

In the News

Israel-Hamas War Aug 5

Hezbollah says it launched a drone attack on northern Israel as fears rise of a regional war. Here's the latest

Israel-Hamas War Jul 28

A strike from Lebanon killed 12 youths. Could that spark war between Israel and Hezbollah?

Al-Manar, a Hezbollah-affiliated news agency, reported that the wireless devices had exploded in people’s hands.

The Lebanese Ministry of Communications identified the exploding devices as Icom V82s, a type of handheld transceiver, adding that they were not purchased through the official distributor and were not licensed by the ministry. Icom did not immediately return a request for comment to NBC News, but a sales manager for Icom America told The Associated Press it appears that explosive devices were knock-offs.

Icom’s website lists the V82 as one of its most frequently counterfeited products and states that is has been discontinued.

“Pay special attention to counterfeit IC-V80, IC-718 (currently produced model) and IC-V82 (discontinued model),” the website said. “Copies of these models are floating in the market.”

The Associated Press reported that its journalists were in Beirut at a funeral for four people killed by exploding pagers Tuesday when they heard “multiple explosions at the site.”

Ambulances arrived at the scene, the AP journalists said.

On Tuesday, exploding pagers belonging to Hezbollah members killed at least 12 people and injured nearly 3,000.

Two U.S. officials said Israel was behind the attack targeting Hezbollah, an Iran-back militia and political party that the United States considers a terrorist organization. The militant group and Lebanese officials also pinned blame on Israel, which has not taken direct responsibility.

It was unclear why Israel carried out the attack when it did and whether it was an opportunistic operation or something more strategic that would be followed by other actions, the officials said.

However, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that he believed the country was in a “new phase in the war.”

“The ‘center of gravity’ is moving north, meaning that we are allocating forces, resources and energy for the northern arena,” Gallant said, adding that they must allow residents to return home.

Lebanon’s Public Health Minister Dr. Firas Abiad said that 12 people were killed in Tuesday’s attack, including an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. More than 2,700 were injured, with an estimated 10% in critical condition, according to National News Agency.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he was visiting the public health ministry’s emergency operation center when news broke about the walkie-talkie explosions. He told reporters that he instructed the country’s foreign minister to call for a United Nations Security Council meeting to address the matter.

“What happened is regrettable — it is a collective crime that defies humanity and human rights, targeting defenseless people in their homes,” Mikati said.

Mikati and other Lebanese government officials have repeatedly said that they do not want the country to be dragged into a war, but stop short of condemning Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel.

The Security Council is expected to meet Friday on the pager attacks and other communications device explosions in Lebanon following a request from Algeria, a U.S. official confirmed to NBC News.

A spokesperson for U.N. Secretary–General António Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” by the device explosions in Lebanon and urged restraint from both parties.

The U.S. was not involved in Wednesday’s incident, said John Kirby, the White House’s national security communications advisor. He declined to answer questions about Israel’s role or whether the U.S. deemed detonating wireless devices an acceptable form of warfare.

Kirby said the U.S. believes the best way to prevent opening a war front with Lebanon is through diplomacy.

“We still don’t want to see an escalation of any kind,” Kirby said. “We don’t believe that the way to solve where we are at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all.”

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. called for a “full accounting” of the attacks to Congress to determine “whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology.”

The attack risked civilian lives as the devices detonated in “a slew of public spaces,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a post on X, adding that it “clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.”

Also on Wednesday, an Israeli commander said troops near the border were “at peak readiness.”

“The mission is clear — we are determined to change the security reality as soon as possible,” said the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command chief, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin. 

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel since October, aligning with Hamas after the Palestinian group’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

International officials have worried for months that the exchanges over Lebanon and Israel’s border could widen the Israel-Hamas war and further destabilize the region.

Thousands of civilians in southern Lebanon and northern Israel have been displaced by the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Monday that he and his Cabinet have updated its list of war objectives to include the safe return of its residents in the north.

The country’s officials have also warned the U.S., its closest ally, that “military action” would most likely be the only way to address mounting hostilities with Hezbollah.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Who made the exploding pagers? A messy global trail emerges behind deadly Lebanon blasts
• Why did Israel blow up hundreds of Hezbollah pagers — and what might happen next?
• Israel sets new war goal, adding to signs of escalation with Hezbollah

Lebanon’s Red Cross said it deployed 30 ambulances across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in response to the walkie-talkie explosions.

Meanwhile, the country’s civil defense force said teams worked to put out fires “inside homes, cars and shops” that were ignited by the blasts.

In the News

Israel-Hamas War Aug 5

Hezbollah says it launched a drone attack on northern Israel as fears rise of a regional war. Here's the latest

Israel-Hamas War Jul 28

A strike from Lebanon killed 12 youths. Could that spark war between Israel and Hezbollah?

Al-Manar, a Hezbollah-affiliated news agency, reported that the wireless devices had exploded in people’s hands.

The Lebanese Ministry of Communications identified the exploding devices as Icom V82s, a type of handheld transceiver, adding that they were not purchased through the official distributor and were not licensed by the ministry. Icom did not immediately return a request for comment to NBC News, but a sales manager for Icom America told The Associated Press it appears that explosive devices were knock-offs.

Icom’s website lists the V82 as one of its most frequently counterfeited products and states that is has been discontinued.

“Pay special attention to counterfeit IC-V80, IC-718 (currently produced model) and IC-V82 (discontinued model),” the website said. “Copies of these models are floating in the market.”

The Associated Press reported that its journalists were in Beirut at a funeral for four people killed by exploding pagers Tuesday when they heard “multiple explosions at the site.”

Ambulances arrived at the scene, the AP journalists said.

On Tuesday, exploding pagers belonging to Hezbollah members killed at least 12 people and injured nearly 3,000.

Two U.S. officials said Israel was behind the attack targeting Hezbollah, an Iran-back militia and political party that the United States considers a terrorist organization. The militant group and Lebanese officials also pinned blame on Israel, which has not taken direct responsibility.

It was unclear why Israel carried out the attack when it did and whether it was an opportunistic operation or something more strategic that would be followed by other actions, the officials said.

However, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that he believed the country was in a “new phase in the war.”

“The ‘center of gravity’ is moving north, meaning that we are allocating forces, resources and energy for the northern arena,” Gallant said, adding that they must allow residents to return home.

Lebanon’s Public Health Minister Dr. Firas Abiad said that 12 people were killed in Tuesday’s attack, including an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. More than 2,700 were injured, with an estimated 10% in critical condition, according to National News Agency.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he was visiting the public health ministry’s emergency operation center when news broke about the walkie-talkie explosions. He told reporters that he instructed the country’s foreign minister to call for a United Nations Security Council meeting to address the matter.

“What happened is regrettable — it is a collective crime that defies humanity and human rights, targeting defenseless people in their homes,” Mikati said.

Mikati and other Lebanese government officials have repeatedly said that they do not want the country to be dragged into a war, but stop short of condemning Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel.

The Security Council is expected to meet Friday on the pager attacks and other communications device explosions in Lebanon following a request from Algeria, a U.S. official confirmed to NBC News.

A spokesperson for U.N. Secretary–General António Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” by the device explosions in Lebanon and urged restraint from both parties.

The U.S. was not involved in Wednesday’s incident, said John Kirby, the White House’s national security communications advisor. He declined to answer questions about Israel’s role or whether the U.S. deemed detonating wireless devices an acceptable form of warfare.

Kirby said the U.S. believes the best way to prevent opening a war front with Lebanon is through diplomacy.

“We still don’t want to see an escalation of any kind,” Kirby said. “We don’t believe that the way to solve where we are at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all.”

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. called for a “full accounting” of the attacks to Congress to determine “whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology.”

The attack risked civilian lives as the devices detonated in “a slew of public spaces,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a post on X, adding that it “clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.”

Also on Wednesday, an Israeli commander said troops near the border were “at peak readiness.”

“The mission is clear — we are determined to change the security reality as soon as possible,” said the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command chief, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin. 

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel since October, aligning with Hamas after the Palestinian group’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

International officials have worried for months that the exchanges over Lebanon and Israel’s border could widen the Israel-Hamas war and further destabilize the region.

Thousands of civilians in southern Lebanon and northern Israel have been displaced by the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Monday that he and his Cabinet have updated its list of war objectives to include the safe return of its residents in the north.

The country’s officials have also warned the U.S., its closest ally, that “military action” would most likely be the only way to address mounting hostilities with Hezbollah.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Who made the exploding pagers? A messy global trail emerges behind deadly Lebanon blasts
• Why did Israel blow up hundreds of Hezbollah pagers — and what might happen next?
• Israel sets new war goal, adding to signs of escalation with Hezbollah

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.

At about 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, as people shopped for groceries, sat in cafes or drove cars and motorcycles in the afternoon traffic, the pagers in their hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.

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 Israeli military declined to comment. The explosions came hours after Israel’s internal security agency said it had foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to kill a former senior Israeli security official using a planted explosive device that could be remotely detonated.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States “was not aware of this incident in advance” and was not involved. “At this point, we’re gathering information,” he said.

Experts said the pager explosions pointed to a long-planned operation, possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the devices with explosives before they were delivered to Lebanon.

Whatever the means, it targeted an extraordinary breadth of people with hundreds of small explosions — wherever the pager carrier happened to be — that left some maimed.

In the News

Israel-Hamas War Aug 5

Hezbollah says it launched a drone attack on northern Israel as fears rise of a regional war. Here's the latest

Israel-Hamas War Jul 28

A strike from Lebanon killed 12 youths. Could that spark war between Israel and Hezbollah?

One online video showed a man picking through produce at a grocery store when the bag he was carrying at his hip explodes, sending him sprawling to the ground and bystanders running.

At overwhelmed hospitals, wounded were rushed in on stretchers, some with missing hands, faces partly blown away or gaping holes at their hips and legs, according to AP photographers. On a main road in central Beirut, a car door was splattered with blood and the windshield cracked.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firas Abiad, told Qatar’s Al Jazeera network at least nine people were killed, including an 8-year-old girl, and some 2,750 were wounded — 200 of them critically — by the explosions. Most had injuries in the face, hand, or around the abdomen.

It appeared eight of the dead belonged to Hezbollah. The group issued a statement confirming at least two members were killed in the pager bombings. One of them was the son of a Hezbollah member in parliament, according to the Hezbollah official who spoke anonymously. The group later issued announcements that six other members were killed Tuesday, though it did not specify how.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” Hezbollah said, adding that Israel will “for sure get its just punishment.”

Iranian state-run IRNA news agency said that the country’s ambassador, Mojtaba Amani, was superficially wounded by an exploding pager and was being treated at a hospital.

Previously, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track and target them.

Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordnance disposal expert, said videos of the blasts suggested a small explosive charge — as small as a pencil eraser — had been placed into the devices. They would have had to have been rigged prior to delivery, very likely by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, he said.

Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based senior political risk analyst, said he spoke with Hezbollah members who had examined pagers that failed to explode. What triggered the blasts, he said, appeared to be an error message sent to all the devices that caused them to vibrate, forcing the user to click on the buttons to stop the vibration. The combination detonated a small amount of explosives hidden inside and ensured that the user was present when the blast went off, he said.

Israel has a long history of carrying out deadly operations well beyond its borders. This year, separate Israeli airstrikes in Beirut killed Saleh Arouri, a senior Hamas official, and a top Hezbollah commander. A mysterious explosion in Iran, also blamed on Israel, killed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ supreme leader.

Israel has killed Hamas militants in the past with booby-trapped cellphones and it’s widely believed to have been behind the Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran’s nuclear program in 2010.

The pager bombings also likely stoke Hezbollah’s worries about vulnerabilities in security and communications, as Israeli officials are threatening to escalate their monthslong conflict. The near daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have killed hundreds in Lebanon and several dozen in Israel, and have displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, deplored the attack and warned that it marks “an extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context.”

On Tuesday, Israel said that halting Hezbollah’s attacks in the north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal. Israeli Defense Minister Gallant said this week the focus of the conflict is shifting from Gaza to Israel’s north and that time is running out for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah, saying “the trajectory is clear.”

The attack took place as tensions continued to simmer in the tiny Mediterranean country, where months of fighting between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops has displaced thousands along the border, following years of political deadlock and economic hardship.

The Lebanese military in a statement said that soldiers shot an assailant, who they only described as a Syrian national. The gunman was wounded and taken to a hospital.

The shooters motives were not clear. However, Lebanese media have published photos that appear to show a bloodied attacker wearing a black vest with the words “Islamic State” written in Arabic and the English initials “I” and “S.”

Local media reported that there was a gunfight for almost half an hour by the U.S. diplomatic mission in the suburb of Aukar, north of Beirut.

The U.S. Embassy said the attack by the embassy’s entrance did not cause any casualties among their staff, and that Lebanese troops and embassy security mobilized quickly.

A statement from Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s office said that he was informed following meetings with the defense minister and army commander that the situation was now stable and that serious investigations are underway.

The Lebanese military said it deployed troops around the embassy and surrounding areas.

In 1983, a deadly bombing attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut killed 63 people.. U.S. officials blame the attack on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Following that attack, the embassy was moved from central Beirut to the Christian suburb of Aukar, north of the capital. Another bomb attack struck the new location on Sept. 20, 1984.

In September 2023, Lebanese security forces detained a Lebanese man who opened fire by the U.S. Embassy. There were no casualties in that attack.

In October 2023, hundreds of protesters clashed with Lebanese security forces in demonstrations near the U.S. Embassy in support of Gaza’s people and the militant group Hamas in its war with Israel.

Anderson, who chronicled his abduction and torturous imprisonment by Islamic militants in his best-selling 1993 memoir “Den of Lions,” died on Sunday at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York, said his daughter, Sulome Anderson.

Anderson died of complications from recent heart surgery, his daughter said.

“Terry was deeply committed to on-the-ground eyewitness reporting and demonstrated great bravery and resolve, both in his journalism and during his years held hostage. We are so appreciative of the sacrifices he and his family made as the result of his work,” said Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP.

“He never liked to be called a hero, but that’s what everyone persisted in calling him,” said Sulome Anderson. “I saw him a week ago and my partner asked him if he had anything on his bucket list, anything that he wanted to do. He said, ‘I’ve lived so much and I’ve done so much. I’m content.’”

After returning to the United States in 1991, Anderson led a peripatetic life, giving public speeches, teaching journalism at several prominent universities and, at various times, operating a blues bar, Cajun restaurant, horse ranch and gourmet restaurant.

He also struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, won millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets after a federal court concluded that country played a role in his capture, then lost most of it to bad investments. He filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

Upon retiring from the University of Florida in 2015, Anderson settled on a small horse farm in a quiet, rural section of northern Virginia he had discovered while camping with friends. `

“I live in the country and it’s reasonably good weather and quiet out here and a nice place, so I’m doing all right,” he said with a chuckle during a 2018 interview with The Associated Press.

In 1985 he became one of several Westerners abducted by members of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah during a time of war that had plunged Lebanon into chaos.

After his release, he returned to a hero’s welcome at AP’s New York headquarters.

As the AP’s chief Middle East correspondent, Anderson had been reporting for several years on the rising violence gripping Lebanon as the country fought a war with Israel, while Iran funded militant groups trying to topple its government.

On March 16, 1985, a day off, he had taken a break to play tennis with former AP photographer Don Mell and was dropping Mell off at his home when gun-toting kidnappers dragged him from his car.

He was likely targeted, he said, because he was one of the few Westerners still in Lebanon and because his role as a journalist aroused suspicion among members of Hezbollah.

“Because in their terms, people who go around asking questions in awkward and dangerous places have to be spies,“ he told the Virginia newspaper The Review of Orange County in 2018.

What followed was nearly seven years of brutality during which he was beaten, chained to a wall, threatened with death, often had guns held to his head and often was kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time.

Anderson was the longest held of several Western hostages Hezbollah abducted over the years, including Terry Waite, the former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had arrived to try to negotiate his release.

By his and other hostages’ accounts, he was also their most hostile prisoner, constantly demanding better food and treatment, arguing religion and politics with his captors, and teaching other hostages sign language and where to hide messages so they could communicate privately.

He managed to retain a quick wit and biting sense of humor during his long ordeal. On his last day in Beirut he called the leader of his kidnappers into his room to tell him he’d just heard an erroneous radio report saying he’d been freed and was in Syria.

“I said, ‘Mahmound, listen to this, I’m not here. I’m gone, babes. I’m on my way to Damascus.’ And we both laughed,” he told Giovanna DellÓrto, author of “AP Foreign Correspondents in Action: World War II to the Present.”

He learned later his release was delayed when a third party who his kidnappers planned to turn him over to left for a tryst with the party’s mistress and they had to find someone else.

Anderson’s humor often hid the PTSD he acknowledged suffering for years afterward.

“The AP got a couple of British experts in hostage decompression, clinical psychiatrists, to counsel my wife and myself and they were very useful,” he said in 2018. “But one of the problems I had was I did not recognize sufficiently the damage that had been done.

“So, when people ask me, you know, ‘Are you over it?’ Well, I don’t know. No, not really. It’s there. I don’t think about it much these days, it’s not central to my life. But it’s there.”

At the time of his abduction, Anderson was engaged to be married and his future wife was six months pregnant with their daughter, Sulome.

The couple married soon after his release but divorced a few years later, and although they remained on friendly terms Anderson and his daughter were estranged for years.

“I love my dad very much. My dad has always loved me. I just didn’t know that because he wasn’t able to show it to me,” Sulome Anderson told the AP in 2017.

Father and daughter reconciled after the publication of her critically acclaimed 2017 book, “The Hostage’s Daughter,” in which she told of traveling to Lebanon to confront and eventually forgive one of her father’s kidnappers.

“I think she did some extraordinary things, went on a very difficult personal journey, but also accomplished a pretty important piece of journalism doing it,” Anderson said. “She’s now a better journalist than I ever was.”

Terry Alan Anderson was born Oct. 27, 1947. He spent his early childhood years in the small Lake Erie town of Vermilion, Ohio, where his father was a police officer.

After graduating from high school, he turned down a scholarship to the University of Michigan in favor of enlisting in the Marines, where he rose to the rank of staff sergeant while seeing combat during the Vietnam War.

After returning home, he enrolled at Iowa State University where he graduated with a double major in journalism and political science and soon after went to work for the AP. He reported from Kentucky, Japan and South Africa before arriving in Lebanon in 1982, just as the country was descending into chaos.

“Actually, it was the most fascinating job I’ve ever had in my life,” he told The Review. “It was intense. War’s going on — it was very dangerous in Beirut. Vicious civil war, and I lasted about three years before I got kidnapped.”

Anderson was married and divorced three times. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by another daughter, Gabrielle Anderson, from his first marriage.

“There’s just a lot of people that just don’t want to hear what we’re about. They don’t want to hear what we believe,” June Everett said.

Everett is the campaign director for the after-school program of the satanic temple. She said they view Satan as a literary figure.

“We look at Satan as a symbol of being the ultimate rebel and standing up against tyrannical authority,” she said.

Everett said the club was requested by a parent and got district approval this week to operate. But, it doesn’t involve any religion.

“We do not teach about Satan. We do not teach them songs to sing to their friends. There’s no proselytizing that takes place at all with our club,” she said.

Everett said instead, kids will be doing activities that focus on science and rationalization while building empathy and tolerance for all creatures, and she wants to push back on misconceptions.

“We do not worship the devil. We’re not sacrificing goats or babies. We are simply having equal access to the space that we have a right to,” she said.

A right that was given thanks to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling (Good News Club v. Milford Central School) that allowed an evangelical Christian group, the Good News Club, to use school buildings after hours.

Lebanon Elementary School has a Good News Club meeting every week at school.

“We do not believe any religious organization should be operating out of our public schools but if they have the right to be there, then we would like to be there as well for our members and our families,” Everett said.

In a statement, Lebanon Public Schools Superintendent Andrew Gonzales said:

“The Lebanon Public Schools (LPS) allows outside organizations to use LPS facilities, in accordance with Board Policy 1007. As such, LPS must allow community organizations to access school facilities, without regard to the religious, political or philosophical ideas they express, as long as such organizations comply with the viewpoint-neutral criteria set forth in the policy. Not everyone will agree with, or attend meetings of, every group that is approved to use school facilities. However, prohibiting particular organizations from accessing our school buildings based on the perspectives they offer or express could violate our obligations under the First Amendment and other applicable law and would not align with our commitment to non-discrimination, equal protection and respect for diverse viewpoints.”

People in town have mixed feelings.

“This is a free country. We’re supposed to have freedom of religion or no religion so I can understand both sides of the story,” said Dori Dougal, who lives in Lebanon.

The After School Satan Club is set to begin next month. The temple said five students have signed up to join so far.

No one claimed responsibility for the Wednesday night small arms fire in the vicinity of the entrance of the heavily-fortified compound in Beirut’s northeastern suburb of Awkar. It was not immediately clear if the incident was a politically-motivated attack.

U.S. Embassy spokesperson Jake Nelson said that “there were no injuries, and our facility is safe.” He added: “We are in close contact with host country law enforcement authorities.”

Shortly after the shooting, the Lebanese army took measures near the embassy and later security agencies started an investigation including analyzing security cameras in the area, a Lebanese official said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

This year marked the 40th anniversary of a deadly bombing attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983, that killed 63 people including at least 17 Americans. Top CIA officials were among those killed in the 1983 embassy attack in a Beirut coastal neighborhood. U.S. official blamed the militant group Hezbollah.

In recent years there have been no reported attacks on the embassy although Lebanon has a long history of attacks against Americans since the 1975-90 civil war started.

In 2008, an explosion targeted a U.S. Embassy vehicle in northern Beirut, killing at least three Lebanese and injuring an American bystander and a local embassy employee. The blast, which damaged the armored SUV and several other vehicles, took place just ahead of a farewell reception for the American ambassador at a hotel in central Beirut.

In October 1983, a truck bombing killed 241 American service members at the U.S. Marine barracks at Beirut airport.

In 1976, the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Francis E. Meloy Jr., and an aide, Robert O. Waring, were kidnapped and shot to death in Beirut. In 1984, William Buckley, CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped and murdered by the Islamic Jihad group.

The U.S. withdrew all diplomats from Beirut in September 1989 and did not reopen its embassy until 1991.

Lebanon’s Red Cross said it deployed 30 ambulances across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in response to the walkie-talkie explosions.

Meanwhile, the country’s civil defense force said teams worked to put out fires “inside homes, cars and shops” that were ignited by the blasts.

In the News

Israel-Hamas War Aug 5

Hezbollah says it launched a drone attack on northern Israel as fears rise of a regional war. Here's the latest

Israel-Hamas War Jul 28

A strike from Lebanon killed 12 youths. Could that spark war between Israel and Hezbollah?

Al-Manar, a Hezbollah-affiliated news agency, reported that the wireless devices had exploded in people’s hands.

The Lebanese Ministry of Communications identified the exploding devices as Icom V82s, a type of handheld transceiver, adding that they were not purchased through the official distributor and were not licensed by the ministry. Icom did not immediately return a request for comment to NBC News, but a sales manager for Icom America told The Associated Press it appears that explosive devices were knock-offs.

Icom’s website lists the V82 as one of its most frequently counterfeited products and states that is has been discontinued.

“Pay special attention to counterfeit IC-V80, IC-718 (currently produced model) and IC-V82 (discontinued model),” the website said. “Copies of these models are floating in the market.”

The Associated Press reported that its journalists were in Beirut at a funeral for four people killed by exploding pagers Tuesday when they heard “multiple explosions at the site.”

Ambulances arrived at the scene, the AP journalists said.

On Tuesday, exploding pagers belonging to Hezbollah members killed at least 12 people and injured nearly 3,000.

Two U.S. officials said Israel was behind the attack targeting Hezbollah, an Iran-back militia and political party that the United States considers a terrorist organization. The militant group and Lebanese officials also pinned blame on Israel, which has not taken direct responsibility.

It was unclear why Israel carried out the attack when it did and whether it was an opportunistic operation or something more strategic that would be followed by other actions, the officials said.

However, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that he believed the country was in a “new phase in the war.”

“The ‘center of gravity’ is moving north, meaning that we are allocating forces, resources and energy for the northern arena,” Gallant said, adding that they must allow residents to return home.

Lebanon’s Public Health Minister Dr. Firas Abiad said that 12 people were killed in Tuesday’s attack, including an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. More than 2,700 were injured, with an estimated 10% in critical condition, according to National News Agency.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he was visiting the public health ministry’s emergency operation center when news broke about the walkie-talkie explosions. He told reporters that he instructed the country’s foreign minister to call for a United Nations Security Council meeting to address the matter.

“What happened is regrettable — it is a collective crime that defies humanity and human rights, targeting defenseless people in their homes,” Mikati said.

Mikati and other Lebanese government officials have repeatedly said that they do not want the country to be dragged into a war, but stop short of condemning Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel.

The Security Council is expected to meet Friday on the pager attacks and other communications device explosions in Lebanon following a request from Algeria, a U.S. official confirmed to NBC News.

A spokesperson for U.N. Secretary–General António Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” by the device explosions in Lebanon and urged restraint from both parties.

The U.S. was not involved in Wednesday’s incident, said John Kirby, the White House’s national security communications advisor. He declined to answer questions about Israel’s role or whether the U.S. deemed detonating wireless devices an acceptable form of warfare.

Kirby said the U.S. believes the best way to prevent opening a war front with Lebanon is through diplomacy.

“We still don’t want to see an escalation of any kind,” Kirby said. “We don’t believe that the way to solve where we are at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all.”

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. called for a “full accounting” of the attacks to Congress to determine “whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology.”

The attack risked civilian lives as the devices detonated in “a slew of public spaces,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a post on X, adding that it “clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.”

Also on Wednesday, an Israeli commander said troops near the border were “at peak readiness.”

“The mission is clear — we are determined to change the security reality as soon as possible,” said the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command chief, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin. 

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel since October, aligning with Hamas after the Palestinian group’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

International officials have worried for months that the exchanges over Lebanon and Israel’s border could widen the Israel-Hamas war and further destabilize the region.

Thousands of civilians in southern Lebanon and northern Israel have been displaced by the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Monday that he and his Cabinet have updated its list of war objectives to include the safe return of its residents in the north.

The country’s officials have also warned the U.S., its closest ally, that “military action” would most likely be the only way to address mounting hostilities with Hezbollah.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Who made the exploding pagers? A messy global trail emerges behind deadly Lebanon blasts
• Why did Israel blow up hundreds of Hezbollah pagers — and what might happen next?
• Israel sets new war goal, adding to signs of escalation with Hezbollah