UN Security Council to meet Friday over Lebanon pager blasts

Ambulances arrive to American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) as more than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, according to a security source, in Beirut, Lebanon September 17, 2024. /Mohamed Azakir/File Photo

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations Security Council will meet on Friday over the pager blasts in Lebanon targeting militant group Hezbollah, said Slovenia's U.N. Ambassador Samuel Zbogar, president of the 15-member council for September.

The meeting was requested by Algeria on behalf of Arab states, he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the pager blasts targeting Hezbollah indicate "a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon and everything must be done to avoid that escalation."

"Obviously the logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a pre-emptive strike before a major military operation," he told reporters ahead of the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly .

He also said that it was very important not to weaponize civilian objects.

Guterres "urges all concerned actors to exercise maximum restraint to avert any further escalation," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric later said in a statement.

-(Reuters)