AN ATTACK OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS! DANIEL WHYTE III, PRESIDENT OF G.L.S. INTERNATIONAL, SAYS ONLY THE GENIUS GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB COULD PLANT AN ATTACK LIKE THIS IN THE MINDS OF HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE, THE ISRAELITES. PRAY FOR THE “PEACE OF JERUSALEM”
Lebanon’s health ministry updates the death toll in the pager explosions to 11.
Another 4,000 are wounded, including 400 in critical condition, according to ministry numbers cited by Arabic-language media.
Hezbollah Pagers Explode in Apparent Attack Across Lebanon
BEIRUT—Pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah operatives exploded at about the same time Tuesday afternoon in what appeared to be an unprecedented attack that authorities said injured almost 2,800 and killed nine across Lebanon.
Pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah operatives exploded within a short period Tuesday, injuring nearly 2,800 people and killing nine. The explosions spread across Lebanon in areas where Hezbollah had a heavy presence. Photo: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
Many of the affected pagers were from a new shipment that the group received in recent days, people familiar with the matter said. A Hezbollah official said many fighters had such devices, speculating that malware might have caused the devices to explode. The official said some people felt the pagers heat up and disposed of them before they burst.
Hezbollah said a number of pagers carried by its members exploded simultaneously at 3:30 p.m. local time. It couldn’t immediately be determined what caused the blasts, which were spread out across the country in several areas where Hezbollah has a heavy presence.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for the attack. Both said civilians were killed, and Hezbollah threatened to retaliate. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Iranian state television said the country’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured by his pager but was conscious and not in danger. Iran is the main supporter of Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that has grown into one of the world’s best-armed nonstate militias.
The apparent attack comes amid growing concerns that tensions along the Lebanese border are in danger of escalating, as the daily exchange of cross-border fire grows in intensity and efforts to strike a deal to pause the fighting in Gaza fail to bear fruit.
Israel’s government is under increasing pressure to return tens of thousands of evacuees to their homes in the north by silencing Hezbollah’s rockets and drones. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that dimming prospects for diplomacy were leaving military action as the only alternative.
Hezbollah nodded to what it called threatening speeches and comments from Israel and said its forces were at the highest level of readiness to defend Lebanon.
Awareness that something unprecedented had happened spread quickly across Lebanon and the region, as social-media chatter about exploding pagers and bloody videos of the aftermath built to a crescendo.
Ambulances soon wailed through the streets of central Beirut, and hundreds of people gathered outside emergency rooms at hospitals across the city, where some of the most severe injuries were sent from around the country. At the American University of Beirut Medical Center, ambulances pulled up every few minutes for several hours along with black SUVs with tinted windows.
An off-duty soldier said he was with a friend in a car in a suburb in southern Beirut. His friend stopped to enter a shop, and as he stepped out his pager blew up, injuring him. The soldier was waiting for news outside a hospital in Beirut along with hundreds who had gathered to check on loved ones but were prevented from entering.
Bassem Badran, who went to college in Illinois and now works in education in Beirut, waited outside the American University Hospital emergency room, where one of his friends was in critical condition and two others were being treated for lesser wounds. The friend with the worst injuries had been shopping in a supermarket when his pager exploded, blowing off his hand.
Badran said many of those who carry pagers aren’t militants in the traditional sense but rather working professionals who you may not even know are Hezbollah members. “But when there is a situation they believe in defending their village and their country,” he said.
Randa Slim, director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., said the attack against Hezbollah operatives is historic in its scope and manner, one that took significant planning and preparation.
“It sends a significant message to Hezbollah leadership that, ‘We can get you anywhere,’” said Slim. “And it very much affects morale.”
“The war on the border is no longer on the border—with this attack it has expanded into their homes and shopping places around Lebanon,” Slim said.
The number of casualties was rising too quickly to count through the afternoon. Hezbollah seemed overwhelmed trying to keep up, and hospitals across the country struggled to treat the injured. Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces called on citizens to clear the roads to facilitate the transportation of the injured to hospitals.
Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad told the British Broadcasting Corp that exploding pagers across the country injured nearly 2,800 people and killed nine, including a child. The government said about 200 people were in critical condition.
He said the number of emergency room admissions in southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, was extremely high. Wounds included severed fingers, head injuries and large gashes to people’s torsos.
He said he didn’t know how and why the explosions happened, adding that many medical staff had got rid of their pagers fearing a second wave of detonations.
The explosions of devices in Lebanon looked like the type of operation conducted by Israel’s intelligence agency, said Ronen Solomon, an independent intelligence analyst.
“What we see now in Lebanon is an effort by something like the Mossad,” said Solomon, who specializes in understanding Israeli operations against Hezbollah and Iran. Israel likely wanted to deliver a message that it has a unique ability to attack, he said.
Michael Horowitz, the head of intelligence at Le Beck International, a security and risk management consulting firm based in the Middle East, said the cause was likely malware that caused the pagers’ batteries to overheat and explode or a charge placed in the devices and detonated remotely.
“Either way, this is a very sophisticated attack,” he said. “Particularly if this is a physical breach, as this would mean Israel has access to the producer of those devices. This may be part of the message being sent here.”
Israel has previously exploited communications devices to carry out targeted killings. After being rocked by a series of suicide bombings in the 1990s, Israel killed Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash by placing an explosive in a phone that was detonated next to his ear.
Hezbollah acknowledged the vulnerability of its communication networks earlier in the war. In February, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, urged its fighters to get rid of their smartphones, saying Israel could use them for surveillance or targeting.
“This phone is in our hands. What is in your hand? I do not have a phone in my hand,” he said.
The attack comes amid growing tension along Lebanon’s border with Israel. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel soon after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel that set off the war in Gaza. The two sides have exchanged fire daily since then, driving tens of thousands of people out of towns on both sides of the border and leaving hundreds of Hezbollah operatives dead.
On Tuesday, Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet said that it had thwarted a bombing attack by Hezbollah targeting a former senior official in Israel’s security establishment. The agency said the attack was expected to be carried out in the coming days. It said that an explosive it discovered was similar to another one found in September 2023 that was also intended to target a senior Israeli official. Hezbollah hasn’t commented on the allegation.
Israel has conducted a number of high-profile intelligence operations in and around Lebanon since the war began. In late July, Israel killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an airstrike in Beirut, taking out a militant who had eluded pursuers for four decades in what was seen as a deep intelligence breach of the group. Earlier in the year, Saleh al-Arouri, a founding member of Hamas, was killed in Beirut in a suspected Israeli strike.
Last week, Israel carried out an ambitious commando raid in Syria to destroy a suspected Iranian military facility supplying Hezbollah, U.S. officials said.
Badran, who was waiting outside the American University Hospital, said he was still absorbing the shock of what had happened hours earlier.
“It wasn’t one incident or a few incidents or in one geographic area but all over Lebanon,” he said, adding that he feared what might come next. “Lebanon is in the midst of it. This will not help. It’s adding to the fuel.”
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IF YOU WERE TO DIE TODAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO: HEAVEN OR HELL? IF YOU’RE NOT SURE, “BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED” FOR JESUS CHRIST SAID THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS EVER SPOKEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WHEN HE SAID, “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.” READ FURTHER RIGHT HERE:
THE BIG QUESTION
GOSPEL LIGHT MINUTE X #447 WITH DANIEL WHYTE IIIThis is the “Chief of sinners,” Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International, with the Gospel Light Minute X Podcast #447 titled, “The Big Question” I’m here to remind you of what the Bible says, that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” like you and me.
“HAVE YOU BEEN BORN AGAIN?”
The question is not “Have you joined a church?” or “Are you trying to do your best?” or “Do you have religion?” but “Are you twice-born?” Jesus Christ said in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”.
We enter the physical world by birth. Spiritual life likewise is entered with a birth. We become members of a human family by birth; we become members of the family of God by birth, by being “born again.” There is no other way to get into the human family except by birth, and there is no other way to get into God’s family except by the new birth. Neither education, nor cultivation, nor reformation, nor “turning over a new leaf,” will accomplish this. What is needed is not a new “leaf” but a new “life”! “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).A New Nature Needed
By physical birth we become partakers of human nature; by being born again we become “partakers of the divine nature”. A Christian is the product of a divine “begetting”. The second birth is not an improvement of the old nature; it is the imparting of an entirely new nature. The old nature is hopelessly corrupt and incapable of ever being made fit for His presence. The new birth requires a creative act of the Holy Spirit. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature”.Not “Trying” But “Trusting”
“Trying to follow Christ” is not Christianity. Christianity is not imitation of Christ, it is the indwelling of Christ. Christianity is not trying to do anything. It is trusting Christ Who has done it all! He has “finished the work” and there is nothing left to do but simply to receive and trust Him. He shed His precious blood on the cross and the work is all done once and forever! Cease trying and begin trusting! Believers will progressively become more and more like Christ, but by His power, not their own.
What Must I Do To Be Saved?
Simply “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”. The Bible says in 1 John 5:1, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God”. The Bible states in John 1:12,13, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”.
You are born again, you become a Christian by trusting a Person—receiving a Person. The very moment you do this, the Lord Jesus Christ comes in and life begins!What Is Meant By “Believe”?
To “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” means more than simply believing the historic facts concerning Him. Intellectual belief about Christ is not sufficient. The belief that brings salvation must be “with the heart,” that is, with the whole being. This belief also includes repentance: “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”. The Bible states in Acts 17:30, “God … now commandeth all men every where to repent”.The faith which saves, then, includes the necessity to repent, and to receive Christ as Saviour and Lord, to rest upon Him alone for salvation. It means to trust Him so utterly and completely that, if He should fail, there would be no hope at all!
May I Know That I Am Born Again?
This is an important question. We know that we are born again by the testimony of God’s Word. God says in John 5:24, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life”. Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as explained by God’s Word? If so, then you are saved, you are “born again,” you have “passed from death unto life.” God says so! Take God at His Word, and go on your way rejoicing!One Final Word
You may “belong to a church,” you may be “trying to do the best you can,” you may be “striving to live right.” Your outward life may be the model of moral correctness, and you may be looked up to, honored, revered, and respected. Yet, if you have not been “born again” you are just as lost as if you had never heard of Christ. Yes, you may teach in the Sunday school, read the Bible, sing, shout, “feel happy,” and all the rest—but if you have never been “born again” you are still in your sins and a stranger to the Lord Jesus Christ!.If you want to be saved from the wrath to come and from an eternity in Hell, and if you believe that Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died on the cross for your sins, was buried, and rose again from the dead and you are willing to trust Jesus Christ with all of your heart so you can go to Heaven, please pray with me what is called the sinner’s prayer: Holy Father God, I acknowledge that I am a sinner and I admit that I have sinned against You and that I have broken Your Ten Commandments. I have lied before. I have stolen things before. I have lusted after people and things before. I have dishonored and disobeyed my parents. I have taken Your holy Name in vain. For Jesus Christ’s sake, please have mercy and grace upon my soul and forgive me of all of my sins, my failures, and my faults. As I now believe in Your Holy Son the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that He suffered, bled, and died on the cross for my sins, was buried and rose again. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit and help me to repent of my sins past. Help me to turn from my old, evil life and follow You in the new life. For it is in Your Name I pray. Amen.
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