19 Iranian soldiers killed, 150 injured in pager bombings, Israel remains silent

Israel’s pager bombing attack on Hezbollah also impacted Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces in Syria, killing 19 and wounding 150.

By World Israel News Staff

At least 19 soldiers in Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed and roughly 150 more were injured in pager explosions in eastern Syria, according to Arabic media reports Wednesday.

On Tuesday, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon detonated simultaneously in a mass attack attributed to Israel.

Eleven people were killed and roughly 4,000 injured in the explosions in Lebanon.

According to a report by the Saudi-based Al Hadath outlet on Wednesday, however, the pager bombings also killed 19 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stationed in the Deir Ez-Zur province of eastern Syria.

In addition, some 150 other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members were injured, Al Hadath reported.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those injured in the attack, reportedly being completely blinded in one eye and partially blinded in the other.

While Iran initially downplayed the severity of his injuries, The New York Times reported that not only was Amani blinded, but that he lost one eye in the attack, while the other was seriously damaged, leaving him with extremely limited vision.

Hossein Soleimani, who heads the IRGC’s news website Mashregh, confirmed on X that Amani had been seriously wounded, several hours after the blasts.

“Unfortunately the injuries sustained by Iran’s ambassador were extremely severe and in his eyes,” Soleimani wrote, acknowledging the severity of Amani’s injuries.

Some 500 Hezbollah operatives were also blinded, either partially or entirely, as a result of the pager explosions, Al Hadath reported.

Media reports after Tuesday’s attack implicated Israel’s Mossad, amid claims its agents implanted miniature explosive devices inside a shipment of thousands of pagers bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah five months ago.

Israel is widely believed to be behind the operation but remains silent and has not acknowledged responsibility.