Pager explosions in Lebanon raise questions and anger.. What happened?
A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad planted explosives inside 5,000 walkie-talkies imported by the group. Hezbollah Lebanese months before the bombings that occurred.
The operation was an unprecedented security breach for Hezbollah, as thousands of pagers were detonated across Lebanon, killing 11 people and wounding nearly 3,000 others, including members of the group and the Iranian ambassador to Beirut.
A Lebanese security source said the pagers were produced by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, but the company said in a statement that it does not manufacture the devices. It added that the devices were made by a company called BAC, which has a license to use its trademark, but did not provide further details.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah group has vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military has declined to comment on the explosions.
What did Lebanese security sources tell Reuters?
- The “conspiracy” appears to have been several months in the making.
- The group ordered 5,000 pagers from Gold Apollo.
- The devices were modified “at the production level” by Mossad.
- Mossad injected a plate inside the device containing an explosive material that receives a code that is very difficult to detect by any means, even using any device or scanner.
- 3,000 pagers exploded when they received a coded message, activating the explosives at the same time.
- Up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the new communications devices and went undetected by Hezbollah for several months.
- “We’ve been hit really hard.”
How did the company comment?
Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kwang said:
- The pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that has the right to use the company’s trademark.
- The product was not ours, it just had our brand.
- We don’t know how the pagers were modified to explode.
Hezbollah operatives use pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location tracking systems.
Hezbollah was reeling from the attack, which left fighters wounded and others hospitalized or killed. A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the explosion was the “biggest security breach” for the group since the Gaza conflict between Israel and its ally Hamas erupted on Oct. 7.
The most prominent statements about the explosion of pagers:
- EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell: There is always a risk of repercussions from escalation in Lebanon.
- “This is easily the biggest counterintelligence failure for Hezbollah in decades,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. government deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East.
- “It shows Israel’s ability to infiltrate its adversaries in an interesting way,” said Paul Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the US intelligence community, particularly at the CIA.
- Financial Times: Israeli spies have a decades-long history of using phones, and the technological advances that have followed them, to track, monitor and even assassinate their enemies.
- Vivian Yee, New York Times reporter: Pager explosions across Lebanon on Tuesday came a day after Israeli leaders warned they were considering escalating their military campaign against Hezbollah.
What are pagers?
A pager is a small wireless communication device developed in the 1960s for use in emergency situations. It relies on sending digital signals via radio waves to notify the user that someone has tried to contact him. Short text messages can also be sent via this device.
Ready-made pager template
Before the spread of mobile phones, pagers were a common means of communication, especially among doctors working night shifts and emergency services personnel, and were also used in military and security fields.
Why do Hezbollah members carry it?
Pagers are relatively old technology that cannot connect to the internet, so they are somewhat safe from cyber-hacking and common spying and tracking attempts when using mobile or smart phones. That is why they are still used in military and security fields, which is probably why Hezbollah members own these devices.
How did the devices explode?
It is still too early to know exactly how these devices exploded, as explanations for the reasons for this are still emerging, the most prominent of which is that a chip was planted in all the pagers before they were imported and used by Hezbollah members.
What are the most targeted areas?
Injuries were concentrated in the south. Lebanon And the southern suburb of Beirut, but in reality there are no specific targeted areas, as the injured were all those carrying pagers regardless of their locations.
An illustrative map of Harat Hreik, the most important area of the southern suburb for Hezbollah
Evidence of this is the injury of 4 people in Syria as a result of an explosion in their car on a tunnel road in the capital Damascus, where Syrian media suggested that the injured were Hezbollah members whose communication devices they were carrying exploded.
