Iranian authorities have taken Iran's ambassador to Beirut to a Tehran hospital after Mojtaba Amani was injured on Tuesday when his pager exploded.
The diplomat was among the victims of the explosion of thousands of communication devices used by the pro-Iran Shiite group Hezbollah that occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday in Lebanon.
The attacks, attributed by various sources to Israel, left 37 dead and more than 3,200 injured, according to Lebanese authorities.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Minister Abbas Araqchi visited Amani in a Tehran hospital.
The doctor who treated Amani expressed hope that the diplomat would recover quickly and be able to return to his post in Beirut, the ministry said, according to the Spanish news agency Europa Press.
The ambassador "thanked the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the Health Ministry and the Red Crescent for their swift action in transferring a large number of wounded to hospitals in Iran," the source said.
"Amani briefed the head of diplomacy on the terrorist incident and the scale of the attack," the ministry added.
Iran's representative to the UN, Amir Saed Iravani, informed the Security Council on Wednesday that Tehran reserved the right to respond "under international law" to the attack on its ambassador.
Iravani described the attack as "a heinous crime."
The Iranian embassy in Beirut said in a statement on Wednesday that Amani's treatment was progressing favorably and dismissed as false reports about the diplomat's "eye condition."
Hours earlier, the US newspaper The New York Times had reported information from sources in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that the explosion had caused Amani to lose one eye and severely damaged the other.
According to initial Lebanese investigations, the communications devices linked to Hezbollah were carrying a hidden explosive charge.
The indiscriminate nature of the attack, which involved explosions in non-military or crowded locations, was criticized by the United Nations.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for civilian objects not to be used as weapons.
Israel has not commented on the matter.
The escalation of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group with significant military and political clout in Lebanon, has raised fears of an expansion of the conflict in the Middle East.
Hezbollah has been attacking positions in northern Israel from southern Lebanon in support of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, which has been facing an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip for 11 months.
The Israeli offensive was triggered by the Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, which caused around 1,200 deaths and two hundred hostages who were taken to Gaza.
The Israeli response in the Gaza Strip has already caused more than 41,200 deaths and a major humanitarian crisis, in addition to the destruction of important infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas since 2007.
