Israeli Mossad Possibly Turned Hezbollah Pagers Into Detonators

A possibility is surfacing that the Israeli Mossad might be involved in the Hezbollah pagers detonation that occurred on Tuesday. The pagers were transformed into weapons of mass destruction with an operation embedding explosives in recently ordered pagers for Hezbollah’s network communication. 

Hezbollah pagers turned into detonators, resulting in more than 2800 injuries across Lebanon with 11 deaths. 

(Also read: Pagers Explosion In Lebanon Left More Than 1000 Injured)

The pagers were manufactured by a Taiwan-based company, Gold Apollo. The devices were meant to be low-tech prices of communication Hezbollah group fighters. The specific selection of pagers was made to avoid detection of their messages from advanced tracking systems.

It is likely that the Israeli Mossad, an Israeli intelligence agency that is responsible for foreign intelligence, analysis of covert operations and data handling for counter-terrorism, might have planted detonating chips in the pagers when they were at their production stage. 

Later, the same pagers were distributed to the Hezbollah group disguised as the standard latest models of the pagers.  

The Israeli Mossad initiated its operation as soon as they received the news of Hezbollah ordering the Taiwan-made pagers, 5,000 in total, months before the strategic deployment of the operation.

The Israeli Mossad stood up in action and planned the embedding of explosives within the device with some modifications so that detonations could be made with a remote trigger mechanism. 

The detonations were designed to happen with seemingly innocuous messages received on the pagers. The moment pagers received a coded message from Hezbollah’s leader on Tuesday morning, it instigated the explosives embedded within the device to explode simultaneously all across Lebanon. 

The pagers-turned-detonators created widespread chaos not only in Lebanon but also in Iran’s envoy to Beirut. The group informed that several casualties involved civilians as well as the group fighters. 

The explosives within the pagers went undetected for months after they were received by Hezbollah fighters despite being used for several weeks. A senior Lebanese security member revealed that the explosives could not be detected with conventional scanning methods. 

On the other hand, Gold Apollo clarified on Wednesday that it had authorised the use of its brand of pagers AR-924 model which was produced and sold by Budapest, Hungary-based company BAC Consulting. Additional information from BAC is still missing at the moment. 

As a response, Hezbollah has vowed to take revenge on Israel after witnessing the scale and intensity of the damage the pager detonators have created in the region. It was described as one of the “biggest security breaches” and a significant intelligence failure in recent years by the group. 

The information minister of Lebanon, Ziad Makary condemned the attacks and said, “Israel will receive its fair punishment” for the mess. A senior Hezbollah official, Hussein Khalil added, “This is not a security targeting of one, two or three people. This is a targeting of an entire nation”. 

US unaware of Israeli Mossad’s intention

The United States clearly denied its knowledge of the pager detonation incident in Lebanon. Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesperson, explained in a press briefing that the United States was completely unaware of Israel’s intention and the US played no role in it. 

Miller assured that the country is gathering information about the matter and that it was not involved anywhere in the plan. He elucidated that the US still seeks a diplomatic solution to the Israel-Gaza war and is working on gathering information. 

He emphasised that the US still wants to reach a diplomatic resolution between Israel and Hezbollah so that thousands of Israelis who have been displaced should return safely to their homes. 

Nicholas Reese, a professor at New York’s University School of Professionals Studies said that smartphones are higher at risk to be detected for such messages, and Hezbollah might have used a simpler technology instead. But now they would have to think twice before using pagers, smartphones, tablets or laptops for any form of communication.