On September 17, the Lebanese Internal Security Forces announced that thousands of pagers or wireless communication devices exploded in various locations across Lebanon, including the southern suburbs of Beirut. The attack reportedly aimed at pagers owned by members of the Hezbollah resistance movement.
The pager explosions resulted in at least ten fatalities, including two children, and injured over 3,000 people. Videos circulating online show that many explosions took place in public areas, leading to transit accidents, secondary injuries, and widespread chaos.
Israel has not taken responsibility for the explosions. However, initial investigations revealed that Israel had concealed explosives within thousands of the pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday's unpredictable attack.
Israel Launched Unexpected CyberAttack on Hezbollah
Thousands of people have been injured in Lebanon, after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously across the country on Tuesday, September 17. Explosions erupted in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, and various other locations around 15:45 local time (13:45 BST).
Social media users circulated videos on the X platform, showing the moment that pager exploded in supermarkets in Lebanon.
Additionally, images shared on social media depicted people with injuries to their faces, abdomens, or limbs.
In a statement released by Hezbollah, the group confirmed that at least two of its members were killed in the bombings, one of whom was the son of a member of parliament. The group later reported that six additional members died on Tuesday, though they did not provide details on the circumstances.
"We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians," Hezbollah said, adding that Israel will "for sure get its just punishment."
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the late afternoon detonation of the pagers. The minister described it as an "Israeli aggression."
Furthermore, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement condemned the attack in a statement describing it as a “war crime.” the Islamic Jihad said in its statement, adding: “The treacherous operation carried out by the Zionist entity’s devices through the explosion of dual-use communication equipment is a documented war crime. It inflicted severe damage on a large number of innocent civilians inside their homes with premeditated malice.”
Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was among the people who sustained injuries in the attacks. According to The New York Times, the Iranian ambassador lost one eye and his other was seriously wounded when a pager he was carrying exploded in Lebanon.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, in a phone call with his Lebanese counterpart, strongly condemned the "terrorist attack" and thanked Lebanon for providing immediate medical treatment to Amani, Iranian state media reported.
Israel's Mossad Planted Explosives in Pagers Provided to Hezbollah
In a speech in February, Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah urged Hezbollah members and their families to ditch their mobile phones. Nasrallah warned that phones were more dangerous than Israeli spies, urging members to bury them
Hezbollah relied on lower-tech communication devices, as they can avoid location tracking and surveillance by Israeli intelligence, unlike mobile phones. Following the cyberattack, multiple images circulated on social media showing damaged pagers bearing the Taiwan company Gold Apollo trademark.
According to a senior Lebanese security source who spoke to the Reuters news agency, a small amount of explosives was on a board inside 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 explosive materials, weighing as little as one to two ounces, were placed next to the battery in each pager, and a switch was embedded that could be remotely activated to detonate the explosives, according to source.
The pagers that exploded on Tuesday were a new brand that the group had not used before, one Hezbollah operative told the AP news agency. A Lebanese security official told Reuters that around 5,000 pagers were brought into the country about five months ago.
Another security source informed Reuters that as much as 3 grams of explosives were concealed within the new pagers, remaining "undetected" by Hezbollah for several months. The source noted that the pagers detonate when a coded message is transmitted, triggering the explosives at the same time.
The focus of media attention has turned to the Taiwanese tech manufacturer Gold Apollo after the trademark of the company was found on the debris of the exploded pagers. However, the company released a statement denying that it had manufactured the pagers. The company’s founder and president, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters Wednesday that the pagers were made by another company licensed to use its brand. The founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, said his company had signed an agreement with a Hungarian-based company, BAC, to manufacture the devices and use his company's name. He added that money transfers from them had been "very strange," without elaborating.
Furthermore, Taiwan's Economic Affairs Ministry reported that there are no records of Gold Apollo pagers being exported to Lebanon from Taiwan in recent years.
The ministry record shows that Gold Apollo exported 260,000 sets of pagers between 2022 and August 2024, and this year they exported 40.929, mainly to Europe and North America.
The ministry further added that pagers made in Taiwan are only capable of receiving signals, and their batteries could not cause any fatal explosions.
On the other hand, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the company “is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary.”
“The referenced devices have never been in Hungary,” Kovacs said on X.
He added the case “poses no national security risk” and Hungary was cooperating “with all relevant international partner agencies and organizations” in further investigations.
Netanyahu Authorized the Pager Explosions in Lebanon
On September 17, the Israeli news website Walla reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the explosion of the pagers in Lebanon during security consultations with senior ministers and intelligence chiefs earlier this week.
The Israeli website reported on Tuesday, referencing unnamed senior U.S. officials, that Israel was responsible for the explosions in Lebanon. This comes despite the Israeli Prime Minister's Office distancing itself from a now-deleted social media post by Netanyahu's advisor, Topaz Luk, which suggested Israeli involvement in the attacks.
An anonymous Israeli source informed the website that the decision to detonate the pagers was authorized earlier this week during a series of security discussions led by Netanyahu with senior ministers, defense officials, and intelligence leaders.
Another unnamed source told the website that Israel executed the operation “in order to open a new phase in the campaign against Hezbollah on the one hand, while trying to keep it below the threshold of all-out war.”
“The operation was aimed at undermining Hezbollah's security and creating in the organization's ranks the feeling that it was completely penetrated by the Israeli intelligence services,” the source said.
According to Walla, the operation "neutralized a significant part of Hezbollah's military command and control system."
Israel Strikes Hezbollah Amid Concerns Over Uncovering Mossad's Secret Operations
Israel carried out its mass detonation of Hezbollah pagers in Lebanon due to concerns that the Lebanese group was on to the operation. According to three U.S. officials who spoke to Axios, the Israeli intelligence suspected that one of the most daring espionage operations in recent history was about to be uncovered by Hezbollah, which led to the decision to act sooner than planned by Israel.
Israeli leaders became concerned that Hezbollah might discover the pagers. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his top ministers, and the heads of the Israel Defense Forces and the intelligence agencies decided to use the system now rather than take the risk of it being detected by Hezbollah, a U.S. official said.
"It was a use it or lose it moment," one U.S. official said, describing the reasoning Israel gave the U.S. for the timing of the attack.
Al-Monitor reported the concerns, alleging two Hezbollah members raised suspicions about the devices days before the attack.
Several minutes before the pagers started exploding across Lebanon, Minister of Defense of Israel Yoav Gallant called U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and told him Israel was about to conduct an operation in Lebanon soon but refused to give any specific details.
A U.S. official said the Israelis did not tell the U.S. about the specifics of the operation but added that Gallant's call was an attempt to avoid keeping the U.S. totally in the dark. Nevertheless, U.S. officials said they did not see Gallant's call as a serious prior notice. "We were not aware of this operation and were not involved," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday.
Second Wave of Exploding Devices Strikes Lebanon
Following Tuesday's pager attack, Lebanon was hit by another deadly wave of exploding communications devices on Wednesday, September 18. According to The Guardian, explosions were heard in the southern suburbs of Beirut, as well as the cities of Nabatieh, Tyre, and Saida in southern Lebanon.
Moreover, twenty-five people were killed and more than 450 wounded in Wednesday’s attack, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
According to reports from Al Jazeera, the explosions involved "mobile phones, portable walkie-talkie radios, laptops, and certain solar power setups that were purchased at a similar time, about five months earlier, as the exploding pagers.''
Although Israel has not made any public statements, it cautioned on Wednesday that a "new era" of war was beginning, appearing to tacitly acknowledge its role.
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