Israeli spies ‘stashed explosives in 5,000 European-made pagers at production level months ago before detonating Hezbollah devices’ – ‘coded text message triggered blasts’ that began Tuesday and continued Wednesday
On Tuesday exploding pagers killed 12 including two children, with 2,800 injured, across Lebanon
More blasts happened Wednesday at a funeral where ‘communication devices’ reportedly, exploded
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah switched to after banning mobile phones earlier this year, saying they were too easy to track
Hezbollah earlier this year ordered thousands of pagers to replace their phones – the pagers were brought into the country last month
Multiple sources say Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, was behind the attack
Security sources claim Israeli spies ‘stashed explosives in 5,000 European-made pagers at production level months ago before detonating Hezbollah devices’
Inserted a small amount of high explosives months before they were imported to Lebanon to be triggered by ‘coded text message that triggered blasts’
Detonations on Wednesday killed 14, injuring a further 450 with doctors reporting treating patients with severe eye and hand injuries
Electronic devices [hand held radios and Pagers], used by Hezbollah members for vital communications began exploding since yesterday, into this morning across Lebanon, killing 12 including 2 children, leaving thousands with horrific injuries
A pager bomb attack that left roughly 2,800 Hezbollah members and civilians injured and 12 dead in Lebanon and Syria yesterday was masterminded by Israel’s Mossad spy agency and the IDF, several security sources allege.
The apparently synchronized wave of devices detonating created widespread panic and chaotic scenes across Lebanon shown in images shared on social media and broadcast by outlets worldwide.
The wave of detonations continued Wednesday. 14 people were killed today, and a further 450 injured, after the latest attacks, with doctors reporting treating patients with severe eye and hand injuries.
According those sources, the Lebanese group Hezbollah earlier this year ordered thousands of pagers and hand-held radios to conduct communications after leader Hassan Nasrallah declared smartphones would be more susceptible to cyber attacks by Israeli forces.
The wireless devices, pagers and radios, arrived last month.
According to security sources, Israeli military and intelligence personnel managed to access 5,000 pagers ‘at the production level’ and insert a small amount of high explosives months before they were imported to Lebanon, Reuters reports.
‘Mossad injected a board inside of the device impregnated with explosive material that could be activated with a code and very hard to detect with any device or scanner,’ Lebanese security sources said.
The stunning incident saw scores of Hezbollah members and medical personnel severely injured throughout southern Lebanon and in its capital Beirut, on Tuesday and Wednesday
While it has been reported that Hezbollah ordered the pagers from Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, the devices were actually manufactured and sold under license by BAC Consulting of Budapest, Hungary.
Brussels-based senior political risk analyst Elijah J. Magnier said he’s spoken with Hezbollah members who a number of these devices that failed to explode.
The electronic forensics revealed that the pagers appeared to have received a coded error message that caused them to vibrate and beep for some 10 seconds.
As anticipated when the user pressed the pager’s button to cancel the alert, the explosives were detonated.
This detonation design ensures the pager is being held by the user at the time, to inflict maximum personnel damage.
The detonation of the Pagers used by Hezbollah members for vital communications began yesterday and has continued Wednesday morning maiming thousands
A police officer inspects a car in which a hand-held pager exploded, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024
The months-long operation by Mossad and the IDF represents an unprecedented security breach for Hezbollah, which vowed to exact revenge on Israel and continue its support for ally Hamas amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
‘The resistance will continue today, like any other day, its operations to support Gaza, its people and its resistance which is a separate path from the harsh punishment that the criminal enemy [Israel], should await in response to Tuesday’s massacre,’ a statement read.
A US security official today said that the attack was planned for a later date as part of an ‘all-out offensive’ against Hezbollah, but Israel chose to detonate the devices early amid concerns the Lebanese group had become aware of the plan, Axios reports.
Chaotic scenes inside hospitals in Lebanon Tuesday evening following blasts that sent thousands to emergency rooms across the country
The string of detonations, which began around 3:30pm local time yesterday and continued for roughly an hour, gave way to widespread panic and chaos across Beirut’s southern suburbs, southern Lebanon and even in neighboring Syria.
Shocking video footage showed how unsuspecting targets reached for their pagers, only to be blown off their feet by an unexpected and violent explosion.
Victims were seen writhing in agony with hideous injuries to their faces, abdomens and even their groins in harrowing images and videos shared to social media and published on Lebanese networks.
Among the 12 people reportedly killed were two girls, aged eight and ten, and several Hezbollah fighters, as well as the son of a Lebanese MP.
Iran later confirmed its ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, sustained injuries to his face and hand.
More than 2,800 people were ultimately injured in the blasts, 300 of whom were rushed to hospital in critical condition.
Police in Beirut inspect a car after hand-held pager exploded inside the vehicle on Sept. 17
Early speculation in the wake of the blasts suggested an Israeli hack could have overloaded the lithium ion batteries powering the pagers, which can burn up to 590 degrees Celsius (1,100 F) when ignited.
But a slew of security sources and experts have since determined the detonations were caused by an Israeli operation that disrupted the supply chain and inserted explosives into the pagers that were subsequently remotely activated by the coded error message.
This security footage shows the moment a man’s pager blew up in a supermarket in Beirut on Tuesday
Security camera footage shared to social media yesterday appeared to show the moment on Israel sent out its deadly message.
A Hezbollah member was seen confusedly lifting his shirt up at a supermarket after his pager, concealed just above his hip, began beeping and lighting up.
The device suddenly exploded, crumpling him to the floor as supermarket workers and fellow shoppers panicked and fled.
‘Looking at the video, the size of the detonation is similar to that caused by an electric detonator alone or one that incorporates an extremely small, high-explosive charge,’ one explosive ordinance expert said.
A Hezbollah statement said: ‘After examining all the facts, current data, and available information about the sinful attack that took place this afternoon, we hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that targeted civilians too.’
Ambulances arrive to American University of Beirut Medical Center on Tuesday
Lebanese public pitched in with the humanitarian effort of donating blood like this man, in a makeshift facility in Beirut’s southern suburb, following the series of explosions across Lebanon on Tuesday
Lebanon’s crisis operations center summoned all medical workers to their respective establishments to help with the massive number of casualties heading to the emergency rooms and ICU
In February, Hezbollah drew up a war plan that aimed to address gaps in the group’s intelligence infrastructure. Around 170 fighters had already been killed in targeted Israeli strikes on Lebanon, including one senior commander and a top Hamas official in Beirut.
In a televised speech on February 13, the group’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah sternly warned supporters that their phones were more dangerous than Israeli spies, saying they should break, bury or lock them in an iron box.
Instead, the group opted to distribute pagers to Hezbollah members across the group’s various branches – from fighters to medics working in its relief services.
Initial reports suggested the pagers ordered by Hezbollah were supplied by a Taiwanese company called Gold Apollo.
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo’s CEO Hsu Ching-kuang, addressing the media outside the company’s office in New Taipei City on Wednesday, denied a report that it had produced thousands of explosive-packed pagers
However, executives at Gold Apollo this morning said the company had only authorized its brand on the devices, adding that the weaponized devices were actually manufactured and sold by Hungary’s BAC Consulting KFT.
‘Apollo Gold Corporation has established a long-term private label authorization and regional agency cooperation with BAC,’ a statement read.
‘According to the agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for production sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC.’
Gold Apollo chair Hsu Ching-kuang told journalists this morning that his company has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years, but did not provide evidence of the contract.
The wireless devices that exploded in the past two days were manufactured and sold under license by BAC Consulting KFT Company of Hungary. [Photo] BAC head office in Budapest
The CEO of BAC Consulting, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, says on her LinkedIn profile that she has worked as an advisor for various organizations including UNESCO.
Contacted by NBC Barsony-Arcidiacono confirmed her company had a working arrangement with Gold Apollo, but added cryptically: ‘I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,’ before hanging up.
The AR-924 pager ordered by Hezbollah, advertised as being ‘rugged,’ contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications once advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was apparently taken down Tuesday after the sabotage attack. It could receive text messages of up to 100 characters.
It also claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life – a crucial factor in Lebanon, where electricity outages have been common as the tiny nation on the Mediterranean Sea has faced years of economic collapse.
Yesterday’s shocking incident comes at a time of heightened tensions between Lebanon and Israel.
Civil Defense first-responders carry a wounded man whose handheld pager exploded at al-Zahraa hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024
Anger and grief as ambulances bearing casualties arrive at American University of Beirut Medical Center in the wake of the explosions on Sept. 17
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been clashing near-daily for more than 11 months against the backdrop of war between Israel and Hezbollah ally Hamas in Gaza.
The clashes have killed hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border. On Tuesday, Israel said that halting Hezbollah’s attacks in the north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal.
Israel has killed Hamas militants in the past with booby trapped cellphones and it’s widely believed to have been behind the Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran’s nuclear program in 2010.
Medical personnel await the arrival of victims injured by exploding pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday
People gather outside a hospital, as more than 3,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, on Tuesday
The sudden explosions across southern Lebanon Tuesday afternoon came hours after an Israeli strike on Lebanon killed three people, the health ministry said.
Israeli forces have traded near-daily fire with the Iran-backed Lebanese group since its ally Hamas launched the October 7 attacks on Israel, triggering the war in Gaza.
The health ministry said an ‘Israeli enemy strike’ on the border village of Blida killed ‘three people and wounded two’, without specifying if they were fighters or civilians.
Israel’s military said its air force ‘eliminated three terrorists’ from Hezbollah who were at a ‘terrorist infrastructure site’ in the Blida area.
Israel launched airstrikes on the village of Blida in southern Lebanon, as seen from an undisclosed location in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel, on September, 17, leaving targets smoldering
Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept an attack from Lebanon over the Galilee region, near Kiryat Shmona, as seen from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Tuesday
Hezbollah did not immediately announce any fighters had been killed, but claimed a series of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Tuesday.
Lebanon’s National News Agency [NNA], reported several Israeli attacks in the south of the country.
The latest deaths came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the political-security cabinet had ‘updated the goals of the war’ to include ‘the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes’.
Almost a year of cross-border violence has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
One side Hezbollah has repeatedly said that only a ceasefire in Gaza will put an end to its attacks, and diplomatic activity in recent months has sought to avert all-out war.
On the other hand for Israel, ‘military action’ was the ‘only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities’, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday
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