Removing lithium batteries from solar panels, leaving cell phones in an empty room, avoiding chargers… The Lebanese are taking multiple precautions, living in fear of deadly explosions of Hezbollah transmission devices.
“What happened in the last two days is frightening, it’s surreal. It feels like we’re living a video game,” says Lina Ismaïl from Baalbek, a stronghold of the Shiite Islamist movement in the east of the country.
“I took the external charging battery that my daughter was using, we all put our phones in an isolated room,” she confirms in a voice choked with emotion.
“The fear was such” that she unplugged the solar panels that supply her home with electricity, going so far as to dismantle the electrical adapter needed for them to work.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, 37 people, mostly Hezbollah members, were killed in explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies used by the movement. Across Lebanon, nearly 3,000 people were injured.
The simultaneous explosions rocked Hezbollah strongholds, including Baalbek. The movement pointed the finger at Israel, which did not comment.
On television screens, the same images are shown in a loop, echoed on social networks: an injured person lying on the ground in the middle of the street during rush hour, an explosion in a supermarket, injured people lying in the courtyard of a hospital.
Doctors interviewed by AFP said they had treated patients with serious eye injuries, when they had not had to amputate fingers.
Panic attacks
For Lina Ismaïl, the danger struck close at hand: “Three explosions rang out around us, two in houses, and a third in a car.”
“When there is war, the air force can carry out a raid and then it is over. But an explosion, when the person is walking or resting at home, there is nothing more terrifying,” she adds.
The explosions are an additional trauma for the already psychologically exhausted Lebanese, in a context of increased regional tensions, fueled by the war in Gaza and 11 months of daily gunfire between Hezbollah and Israel, on Lebanon’s southern border.
The slightest noise can cause panic, whether it is the explosion of a tire or a loud blast caused by Israeli planes breaking the sound barrier.
In Badaro, a Beirut neighborhood known for its lively cafes, hacking of communications devices is a hot topic of conversation.
“We are a people who live in permanent stress,” laments George Bahnam, a 57-year-old baker. He describes his sadness “seeing all these young people injured and lying on the ground.”
Even his sister gave up her cell phone, “fearing it would be one of the devices that could be hacked,” he said. “We’re already under economic stress. Now we don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”
Behind him, in his unlit oven, crispy thyme pancakes await customers who don’t come.
“Who’s going to explode?”
On social media, Internet users are sharing instructions encouraging people to remove batteries from electrical equipment, even though, according to many experts, security sources or those close to Hezbollah, the devices that exploded were intercepted and hacked before they reached Hezbollah’s hands.
The Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority has announced that it is banning “until further notice” the transport of pagers or walkie-talkies on planes or in air cargo.
On Thursday, calm reigned in Beirut and its southern suburbs, another Hezbollah stronghold, and schools were open.
But many Lebanese said they avoided crowded places — or neighborhoods known to be pro-Hezbollah — “because you don’t know who’s going to blow up,” said Ghadir Eid, 25.
“Yesterday I thought about leaving my phone away from me, but I changed my mind after a quick search on the Internet,” she admits. “At home, we unplugged the solar panels. We didn’t feel safe because of the batteries.”
Met in Badaro, she too jumps when a truck tire explodes and sows confusion among passers-by.
“Everything is piling up and it’s causing us anxiety and a sense of insecurity,” says the young woman, who has just graduated as a nurse. “And, above all, we don’t know if it’s going to turn into a war.”