JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
For more perspective on the aftermath of the exploding devices and what the Hezbollah leader had to say, we're joined by NPR's Jane Arraf, who is also in Beirut. Hi, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: Jane, let's start with Nasrallah. What did he say?
ARRAF: Well, he admitted that the high-tech attack was a major blow, setting off explosives in what he said were almost 5,000 devices, aimed at mass casualties without regard for who was hurt.
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HASSAN NASRALLAH: We can say that over two days, in one minute on Tuesday and one minute on Wednesday, the Israeli enemy wanted to kill no fewer than 5,000 people in two minutes without concern for any constraint and with no problem with where or how they were killed.
ARRAF: He said revenge was coming, but he wasn't going to go into how or when. And he said if Israel's goal was to return Israelis to border towns they've been forced to evacuate, Israeli attacks would make that much harder to achieve.
SUMMERS: And, Jane, what was the reaction in Lebanon?
ARRAF: It really depends on who you ask. We were at a hospital, the Lebanese American University Hospital, where doctors have treated dozens of patients for blast injuries. Most of the victims there were young men, Hezbollah members who had fingers blown off or eye injuries. We spoke to the family of a man in his 20s. Even the hospital wasn't aware of patients' names, just numbers identifying them.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: His mother said they had complete faith in Nasrallah. And she likened the thousands of victims to the seventh-century Battle of Karbala, the definitive event in Shia history which, for followers, evokes the fight for justice. As we were at the hospital, low-flying Israeli jets over Beirut broke the sound barrier, a reminder that Israel commands the skies.
SUMMERS: The latest death toll from these attacks is 32 killed, more than 3,000 wounded. And it's just such a huge number, hard to fathom. How has Lebanon been coping?
ARRAF: Well, at the Lebanese American University Hospital, we spoke with an ophthalmologist, Roland Seif, who had been operating until 4 in the morning on Wednesday.
ROLAND SEIF: It seemed like the explosive charge targeted more in the eyes than anything else. They probably - they paged them before, so they were reading on the pager, and then the blast went directly to the eyes.
ARRAF: He said about one-third of the roughly 50 patients they operated on were completely blinded in the attacks. Many of them also had fingers blown off.
SEIF: There is a long-term huge damage on everyone. So basically every injury is a debilitating injury for their life.
ARRAF: Seif said the hospital had also treated an 11-year-old boy who was killed in the pager attacks. We attended that funeral on Wednesday. He said the child had picked up the pager when it beeped, and shrapnel pierced his skull. The boy died during surgery.
SUMMERS: I mean, Jane, this attack was so unexpected. How are Lebanese authorities dealing with the prospect that there could be more continued attacks like this?
ARRAF: Well, they're doing what they can. Lebanon's Civil Aviation authorities have now banned pagers and walkie-talkies from being taken on planes - a nightmare scenario there if one would explode. Security forces today were doing controlled detonations of devices they suspected of being at risk. And as we've heard, it's really rattled people in general. Security has been tightened everywhere, and you can see people are much more nervous than they would otherwise be faced with what have become the usual threats of air strikes or missiles.
SUMMERS: That's NPR's Jane Arraf in Beirut. Thank you.
ARRAF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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