Lebanese expert suggests multiple parties involved in deadly pager attack

A Lebanese expert said he believes that Israel worked with other countries and foreign companies to conduct two widespread attacks in Lebanon that have killed 37 people so far.

Tuesday's pager explosions in Lebanon killed 12 people, with 2,323 others injured, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said at a news conference on Thursday, adding that 226 people injured on Tuesday are still hospitalized.

The death toll in explosions of hand-held radios across the country on Wednesday rose to 25 with 608 injured, Abiad said.

During an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Wednesday, Ali Omais, director of the Center for Strategic Research and Studies at Makassed University of Beirut, analyzed the causes of the explosion.

"This is a very dangerous incident because Israel was able to penetrate Hezbollah. And Hezbollah also holds Israel responsible. This issue is considered very dangerous, because Israel was able to penetrate Hezbollah's security structure. Just as it was able to penetrate the devices, it was also able to penetrate Hezbollah’s security systems and knew that they would purchase a large quantity of pagers. Because booby-trapping these pagers requires technical support from multiple parties, I believe that the Israelis cooperated with other countries and companies. Such an act also requires large devices, which may have come from the manufacturers of these pagers in the first place. So I believe that there is cooperation from several parties, including Israel, to booby-trap these devices," he said.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday in a televised speech that the deadly device explosions across Lebanon are "an act of war and a declaration of war by Israel."

Israel "violated all red lines," Nasrallah said, calling the incidents "massacres."

He stressed that Hezbollah will not stop its military operations until the conflict in the Gaza Strip ends.

Nasrallah also noted that Hezbollah has set up several internal investigation committees to conduct in-depth examinations into the explosions at the technical and security levels, in order to obtain results in a short period of time.

Lebanese expert suggests multiple parties involved in deadly pager attack

Lebanese expert suggests multiple parties involved in deadly pager attack

China's fiscal operations remained stable and orderly in 2025, with satisfactory budget execution, according to a fiscal policy execution report released by the Finance Ministry on Tuesday.

China's general public budget revenue hit 21.6 trillion yuan (about 3.14 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, with tax revenue registering positive growth, said the report.

Expenditure in the national general public budget totaled 28.7 trillion yuan, ensuring spending in key areas such as social security and employment, education, and healthcare.

In compliance with the requirement for Party and government offices to tighten their belts, budgets for spending on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality decreased by 5 percent compared to that in 2024, ensuring more effective use of government funds.

In terms of measures to boost consumption, efforts were made to expand the scope of consumer goods trade-in program, and provide interest subsidies for consumer loans, according to the report.

Data showed that by the end of 2025, the balance of personal consumption loans from 23 lending institutions approached nearly 6 trillion yuan, an increase of over 500 billion yuan, or 10.2 percent, compared to that in 2024.

The institutions issued more than 2 trillion yuan in loans to over 1.4 million entities in the service sector, supporting them in upgrading consumer infrastructure, and enhancing their service supply.

In terms of efforts to increase investment, the ceiling for new local government special-purpose bonds was set at 4.4 trillion yuan in 2025, an increase of 500 billion yuan from the previous year, the report said.

These funds were primarily channeled into sectors such as transportation infrastructure, government-subsidized housing projects and urban renewal projects, and infrastructure for forward-looking, strategic emerging industries.

In total, more than 48,000 projects were supported and over 300 billion yuan was used as project capital.

Furthermore, the proactive fiscal policy in 2025 played a vital role in fostering the deep integration of sci-tech and industrial innovation, advancing urban-rural integration and regional coordination, and ensuring and improving people's livelihoods, according to the report.

China's fiscal operations remain stable, orderly in 2025: report