Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency has been accused of planting explosives in 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah, setting the stage for devastating detonations across Lebanon, according to Reuters, citing a senior Lebanese security source.
The carefully orchestrated attack targeted Hezbollah terrorists, killing at least 11 people, and more than 4,000 have been injured, including the Iranian envoy to Beirut, marking the “biggest security breach” the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror network has faced since its ongoing war with Israel began.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah announced on Tuesday that seven of its fighters have been killed in attacks it blamed on Israel.
The group has released pictures of the seven fighters, identifying them as Youssef Madi Alwa, Hassan Ahmed Muhammad, Najib Abdul Hussein Alaa Al-Din, Hassan… pic.twitter.com/Lu7Pt9AIQT— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) September 17, 2024
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, has suffered severe injuries and has lost one eye. The question now is how an ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran has a Hezbollah pager.
Update breaking news: Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon lost one eye and his other eye is severely injured, two IRGC sources tell me. His injury is much more serious than Iran initially reported. Details:https://t.co/XUj2UEbmpD
— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) September 17, 2024
Far-left New York Times reported that the pagers, AR-924 model, were ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo and had been tampered with before reaching Hezbollah’s hands.
Explosive material was implanted next to the battery of each pager, enabling remote detonation. At precisely 3:30 p.m., the devices received a message that appeared to be from Hezbollah’s leadership. Instead, the message triggered an explosion.
According to officials who spoke to NYT, the devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding.
Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang stated that the pagers involved in the explosion were manufactured by a European company that had the rights to use Gold Apollo’s brand, though he could not immediately recall the company’s name.
“The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” Hsu told reporters in Taiwan.
In a separate statement, the company identified the manufacturer as BAC.
“We authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC,” the statement said.
Reuters reported:
Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters this year.
But the senior Lebanese source said the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service “at the production level.”
“The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner,” the source said.
The source said 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
Another security source told Reuters that up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the new pagers and had gone “undetected” by Hezbollah for months.
Hsu said he did not know how the pagers could have been rigged to explode.
Israeli officials did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
