Beirut eye doctor describes ‘devastating’ injuries after blasts

BEIRUT — An eye doctor in Lebanon said he has treated some 40 to 50 people with serious injuries, including some who lost both eyes, after a wave of communication device explosions targeted members of the militant group Hezbollah this week, killing dozens.

“We’ve never seen that much cases of patients and casualties that have been losing their eyes because of explosions,” Dr. Elias Warrak told NBC News. “It’s a nightmare.”

Thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives exploded almost simultaneously across the country in an attack this week, killing at least 37 people, including two children, and injuring nearly 3,000. The majority of those injured were civilians, Lebanon’s health minister said Friday.

Warrak said for some patients, he could save one eye, but “unfortunately, some of them, we lost both eyes.”

The doctor said some of the patients he has seen came to him after having been treated by neurosurgeons to remove shrapnel from their brains.

He said he believes the patients were injured while “looking at something” that exploded because “you can see from the pattern of injuries that something has blown just directly in the face.”

Hezbollah has blamed the blasts on Israel, while Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks nor directly commented on them.

Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday that it was in a “new phase of the war” on the northern border as Israel launched a new wave of attacks against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Thursday.

The Israeli military said the strikes were aimed at degrading the group’s “capabilities and infrastructure.”

The blasts from the pagers and walkie-talkies overwhelmed hospitals and left people fearful of using electronic devices.

On Friday, Israel said it killed a top Hezbollah official in a “targeted strike” on the Lebanese capital of Beirut after Hezbollah struck back across the border following the wave of stunning attacks targeting the group’s communication devices.

“There is no doubt that we have been exposed to a major and severe security and humanitarian blow,” Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address Thursday.

Warrak said he has been running between several different hospitals to tend to the injured.

“This is the first time that I had to take out that much eyes in a couple of days,” he said.

“As a human being, definitely, it is devastating. It kills me,” he said.