We can bring you some details now, from Lebanon’s public health minister Firass Abiad, about the kinds of injuries being seen in the country after these pager explosions.

Most "appear to be to the face and especially to the eyes, and also the hand with some amputations, whether it’s in the hands or the fingers," he tells the BBC's Newshour programme.

The "vast majority" presenting to emergency rooms are in civilian clothes, he goes on, saying this makes it "very difficult to discern whether they belong to a certain entity like Hezbollah or others".

"But we are seeing among them people who are old or people who are very young, like the child who unfortunately died, and there are some of them who are health care workers."

He describes the incident as "a major escalation at a time when everybody was hoping that things were moving to a kind of cessation of hostilities or some kind of ceasefire" - and says Israel is the "obvious culprit".

As we've been reporting, Israel has not commented on the explosions.

Eight Hezbollah members have died after handheld pagers exploded across Lebanon today, the group says on Telegram.

Lebanon's health ministry had said at least nine people were killed, among them a young girl.

As this is a moving situation, figures can change fast - if they do we'll let you know.

Lufthansa Group says it is suspending all connections to and from Tel Aviv, in Israel, and Tehran in Iran, and will bypass Israeli and Iranian airspace up to and including 19 September due to the "recent change in the security situation".

The update has been made with immediate effect, the German airline group says in a statement, and it will assess the situation further in the coming days.

Airlines that sit under the Lufthansa Group include Lufthansa Airlines, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings.

It's not the first time an airline has suspended services to the region since 7 October - Lufthansa Group was among others to suspend some flights in the region in April after Iranian strikes on Israel.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

We're hearing from the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, who describes what's happened in Lebanon today as "an extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context".

She urges all those concerned to refrain from any further action or aggressive rhetoric which could trigger "a wider conflagration that nobody can afford".

• As a reminder: Hezbollah and some Lebanese officials have blamed Israel for the pager explosions, but the Israeli military has not commented. Hamas - at war with Israel in Gaza - has also blamed Israel.

We're beginning to see more images from Lebanon's capital Beirut, one of several locations where handheld pagers exploded on Tuesday.

Here's the scene outside one of the city's hospitals:

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Frances Mao
Live reporter

The damage done today to Hezbollah's pager system leaves the group in a vulnerable position, Beirut-based analyst Nicholas Blanford tells me.

He says until Hezbollah is able to "rebuild its comms system", people may not be able to communicate with each other at times of need, and questions what that means for the group over the "coming hours and days".

But Blanford, a fellow at the US-based Atlantic Council, also points out that not all Hezbollah members will use pagers to communicate.

"More senior field officers may not have been affected because they simply do not carry electronic communications devices, relying on messengers."

Image source, Reuters

Some fresh lines from the White House now.

"We continue to believe that there should be a diplomatic resolution to this," says press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Her statement comes amid fears of escalation between Lebanon and Israel after pagers - used by Hezbollah - exploded across Lebanon and killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 3,000 more.

Earlier, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller also said the parties should find a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Hamas - like Hezbollah and some Lebanese officials - has now blamed Israel for these explosions across Lebanon.

In a statement, the group says Israel has targeted both civilians and fighters in the move, and warned them of the consequences.

The statement also references US support of Israel. The Israeli military has still not commented on the attack.

Hezbollah is a known supporter of Hamas - currently at war with Israel in Gaza - and, like Hamas, is backed by Iran and proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and other countries.

Carine Torbey
Reporting from Beirut

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Hours after the mass attack, ambulances were still rushing to hospitals which were overwhelmed with the number of casualties.

Outside, relatives of the injured were gathering in the hope of receiving any updates.

The hospital where we went was closing its main gate and limiting the number of people getting in.

"It's very sensitive and some scenes are horrific," one hospital staff member told me. He added that most injuries are on the level of the waist, the face, the eyes and the hands.

I was told:

Tonight, the whole country is in a state of disbelief and shock, with people unable to get their heads around what really happened.

It is unprecedented in scale and nature and extremely hard to fathom even for a country used to unfathomable events.

Videos posted online show injured taken to hospitalpublished at 20:12 British Summer Time 17 September

20:12 BST 17 September

By Richard Irvine-Brown

Image source, Telegram

Among the videos BBC Verify has been looking at this afternoon are several showing the aftermath of the explosions.

Two videos show the scene of ambulances and crowds gathering at the entrance to the hospital in Tebnin, a town 75km (46 miles) south of Beirut.

Meanwhile, in the capital Beirut, a video from inside Bahman Hospital shows the injured and dead in corridors and doorways, with doctors squeezing past to treat them and other medics calling for help, while more patients arrive on stretchers.

In the two-minute tour through the hospital's ground floor and western courtyard, we count at least 28 patients either being treated, carried in, or already bound with bandages.

Another video, taken on Waked Street, 320m north of the hospital shows two injured men being helped by members of the public. One, bleeding heavily from his hand and possibly his head is helped toward a car, while another is lifted off the road by three men.

Hezbollah considers this an escalation - what comes next is unclearpublished at 20:03 British Summer Time 17 September

20:03 BST 17 September

Daniel De Simone
Reporting from Jerusalem

Some in Israel have been arguing for the need of a military operation in southern Lebanon to create a buffer zone to tackle the threat from Hezbollah.

Others have counselled against such a step given the potential impact of a bigger war. Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has been regarded by many as better trained and equipped than Hamas.

Yesterday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin warned of the devastating consequences of further escalation.

From Hezbollah’s statement today, the group considers an escalation has now taken place. What happens next is unclear.

Attack comes after Israel's previous warnings about its border with Lebanonpublished at 20:03 British Summer Time 17 September

20:03 BST 17 September

Daniel De Simone
Reporting from Jerusalem

The explosions today came only hours after Israel's security cabinet made the safe return of residents to the north of the country an official war goal – the only one of four overall goals relating to the north.

Israel has repeatedly warned it could launch a military operation to drive Hezbollah away from the border, and yesterday the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned that, failing a political solution, "military action" would be the only option to ensure the return of Israeli citizens to the north.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October last year, and Israel’s continuing assault on Hamas in Gaza, there has also been a significant conflict with Hezbollah.

The militia has been sending rockets and drones into Israel, with the Israeli air-force conducting frequent raids against the group's positions and members. Thousands of cross-border attacks have taken place.

The UN says the conflict has forced more than 90,000 people in Lebanon from their homes. In Israel, officials say 60,000 civilians have had to abandon where they live.

Frances Mao
Live reporter

Based on the few details we know so far, several analysts are also suggesting the attack came about from weaponised pagers being supplied.

Hezbollah has used pagers instead of mobile phones since earlier this year when the Israelis used them as tracking tools to find and kill commanders. They've been in use for a while now. But this could have resulted from a new batch being supplied.

"This was a new shipment," says Prof Janane El-Khoury from Lebanese University. "Who allowed this new shipment to come to Lebanon to be distributed to Hezbollah members?"

Former CIA Middle East analyst Emily Harding also says it looks like a supply chain attack. "Perhaps Hezbollah did a refresh of their pagers, and the new ones were altered. Then the trigger must have been some kind of signal."

She said knowing where the victims were, and if the explosions happened all at the same time, would help paint a clearer picture.

Among the nine people killed is a girl, as we reported earlier.

The girl is the daughter of a Hezbollah member and died in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, AFP news agency reports.

Nearly 3,000 are injured, according to Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad.

The US responds with apparent surprise to the pager explosions.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says: "The US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we’re gathering information."

He adds that the US does not know who is responsible.

Earlier reports indicate that both Hezbollah and Lebanese officials blame Israel, which has yet to comment.

Miller also addresses the apparent injury of Iran's ambassador in the explosion. "We would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident to try to add further instability and to further increase tensions in the region," he says.

Image source, EPA

In short, it's a politically-influential Shia Muslim organisation which controls the most powerful armed force in Lebanon.

It was established in the early 1980s by the region's most dominant Shia power, Iran, to oppose Israel. At the time, Israel's forces had occupied southern Lebanon during the country's civil war.

Hezbollah has participated in national elections since 1992 and has become a major political presence.

Its armed wing has carried out deadly attacks on Israeli and US forces in Lebanon. When Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah took credit for pushing them out.

Since then, Hezbollah has maintained thousands of fighters and a huge missile arsenal in southern Lebanon. It continues to oppose Israel's presence in disputed border areas.

The group is designated a terrorist organisation by Western states, Israel and Gulf Arab countries.

In 2006, a Hezbollah cross-border raid triggered a full-blown war between the group and Israel, with Israeli troops invading southern Lebanon - but Hezbollah survived the conflict.

Daniel De Simone
Reporting from Jerusalem

An update now on the number of people killed in Lebanon.

Dr Firass Abiad, the country's minister of public health, says nine have died and thousands more are injured after pagers being used by Hezbollah exploded in southern Beirut and several other areas of the country.

We're hearing that people in Syria, which borders Lebanon, have also been injured by the exploding pagers.

"Fourteen people whose nationalities are unknown have been wounded in Damascus and its countryside after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - a UK-based monitoring group - says.

The is in addition to the eight who've so far been announced dead and almost 3,000 injured in Lebanon.

We've just heard from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who say in a statement they've held a situational assessment this evening.

"At this time there is no change to the Home Front Command defensive guidelines," says an IDF spokesperson. These are the directives issued by the Israeli military for civilians to follow in order to keep themselves safe in the event of an attack.

"The public are asked to remain alert and vigilant, and any change in policy will be updated immediately," the statement adds.

The IDF are still yet to comment on the pager explosions.

• As a reminder: Both Hezbollah and Lebanese officials have, in the past couple of hours, blamed Israel for the pager attacks.

Ben Hatton
Live reporter

Image source, EPA

Pagers used by Hezbollah have exploded simultaneously, with almost 3,000 people reported to have been injured. The Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group, which is banned as a terrorist organisation in the UK, US and other countries, says an investigation into the cause is under way.

Here's what we know so far:

Casualties:Hezbollah says two of its fighters and a young girl have been killed. The Lebanese health ministry say eight people have been killed and at least 2,750 injured. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon - Mojtaba Amani - is reportedly among the injured.

Hezbollah blames Israel: A statement from the group says Israel is "fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians". It says "this treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive its just punishment".

Lebanese officials also blame Israel: That's according to reports from local media in Lebanon. The country's information minister Ziad Makary has condemned the pager blasts as "Israeli aggression" according to Lebanon's Al-Manar TV broadcaster.

Israel is yet to comment: We've not yet had a statement from the Israeli military, who have been engaged in cross-border fire with Hezbollah for months. The explosions come hours after Israel made the return of residents displaced by Hezbollah attacks one of its war goals.