Mossad reportedly prepared months in advance for pager explosions targeting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon
Hezbollah has been using pagers to communicate since the early 2000s after its leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the group¡¯s members not to carry mobile phones, saying they could be used by Israel to track the group's movements.
It was a scene straight out of a spy movie ¨C hundreds of handheld pagers going off simultaneously, resulting in minor explosions that injured hundreds of Hezbollah militants and caused at least eight deaths across Lebanon and Syria. According to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad, at least 2,800 people have been injured in the explosions, of which around 170 are in critical condition.
CREDIT: REUTERS
Mossad carried out the pager explosions
This was the most sophisticated coordinated remote explosion carried out by the Israeli Military and its spy agency Mossad, targeting the Lebanese Shia militia group Hezbollah.
BREAKING: Massive explosion hits Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon! Hundreds of members injured, many seriously, after pagers detonate. Officials call it "biggest security breach" in a year. Chaos ensues with 30-minute prolonged blasts. #Hezbollah #Lebanon #Explosion pic.twitter.com/k53wmmkz4o
¡ª Daily Sherlock ?? (@DailySherlock0) September 17, 2024
While there is no official confirmation of how the serial explosions were carried out, various reports, including those quoting unidentified Israeli Military, Hezbollah sources and defence experts, suggested that the pagers were compromised well in advance.
CREDIT: REUTERS
Why Hezbollah use pagers
Hezbollah has been using pagers to communicate since the early 2000s after its leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group¡¯s members not to carry mobile phones, saying they could be used by Israel to track the group's movements.
The pagers that exploded on Tuesday were manufactured by a Taiwanese firm called Gold Apollo and were shipped to Lebanon earlier this year.
An unidentified Hezbollah leader told AP that this was the first time the outfit had purchased pagers from the Taiwanese manufacturer.
CREDIT: REUTERS
Explosives implanted during manufacturing
It is widely believed that Mossad, which managed to infiltrate the production level, injected a board inside the device that contained explosive material which receives a code.
??? WIDE SCALE TERRORIST ATTACK ON LEBANON
¡ª Expat Vibes (@expatvibes) September 17, 2024
Thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded all over the country, causing mass injuries, and 8 deaths so far. pic.twitter.com/JdmLQsG83f
'Throw them away'
In total, some 5,000 such communication devices were shipped to Lebanon earlier this year and were distributed among Hezbollah operatives.
Over three thousand such devices are said to have exploded simultaneously on Tuesday, and following the incident, Hezbollah leadership sent out a voice message to its operatives asking anyone who still had the new pagers to them away.
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Bobins Abraham is the Assistant News Editor at Indiatimes. He has more than twelve years of experience in TV and digital journalism. An avid student of history and geopolitics, he is a conservationist and environmentalist at heart. He writes on environment, sustainability, human-animal conflict and more.
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