Hezbollah vows retaliation after exploding pagers kill at least 9 and hurt almost 3,000

The Lebanese Health Minister said nine people were killed and more than 2,750 wounded in the pager explosions, 200 of them critically.

An ambulance carrying wounded people whose handheld pagers exploded arrives outside the American University hospital in Beirut. Picture: Hassan Ammar/AP Photo

Militant group Hezbollah promised to retaliate against Israel after accusing it of detonating pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others who included fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the late afternoon detonation of the pagers - handheld devices that Hezbollah and others in Lebanon use to send messages - as an "Israeli aggression".