The Mossad plot to booby-trap more than 5,000 pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah with high explosives was reportedly two years in the making.
At least 40 people were killed and thousands more injured in Lebanon over two days in mid-September after Israel detonated explosives that were embedded in communications devices used by the terrorist group.
The explosions, which killed both terrorists and Lebanese civilians, immediately called into question Hezbollah’s security practices.
He Washington Post reported that Mossad, Israel’s shadowy foreign intelligence and operations agency, began its plot to pack pagers with explosives in 2022, more than a year before the October 7 Hamas attack.
The pager plot came about after Mossad was able to fill Hezbollah walkie-talkies with explosives as early as 2015, rendering them inactive until they needed to be activated.
Hezbollah, which has long been an enemy of Israel, used low-quality technology to communicate with its fighters and prevent its enemies from gathering intelligence.
Although pagers and walkie-talkies were effective for a time, the Post revealed that the Mossad had begun inserting booby traps in Lebanon nine years ago, and each device was equipped with a large battery, a hidden explosive and a system transmission that allowed Israel to listen to the communications.
Remains of what is believed to have been a pager carried by a Lebanese militant and detonated
Explosions shook Lebanon to its foundations in mid-September
At least 40 people were killed and thousands more injured in Lebanon over two days in mid-September after Israel detonated explosives embedded in communications devices.
For several years, the Israelis were content to spy on Hezbollah and retain the option to detonate them whenever they wanted.
But seeing a new product ready for exploitation, the Mossad decided to up the ante, purchasing large quantities of Taiwanese Apollo-brand pagers, taking advantage of a trademark and a well-known product line with global distribution and no discernible ties to Israel. or Israel. Jewish interests that could have aroused Hezbollah’s suspicions.
The sales pitch to Hezbollah came from a marketing official Hezbollah trusted with ties to Apollo, whose name was not revealed by sources the Post spoke to.
She sold the terrorist group the AR924 model, according to an Israeli official: “She was the one who was in contact with Hezbollah and explained to them why the larger pager with the larger battery was better than the original model.”
One of the main selling points of the AR924 was that it was possible to charge it with a cable. And the batteries lasted longer,” said the official.
The Mossad pagers, which weighed less than three ounces each, contained a battery containing a small amount of a powerful explosive, enough to cause serious damage.
The bomb’s battery component was reported to be so carefully hidden that it evaded Hezbollah’s attempts to disassemble and analyze the devices.
Photo taken on September 18, 2024 shows a wireless communication device in the hand of a Hezbollah member, whose battery was removed after a wireless communication device exploded during a funeral, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Thousands killed and injured in pager explosions
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Another trick up Mossad’s sleeve to ensure that as many people as possible were injured or killed was to ensure that the signal to activate the explosives required two hands to use.
The pagers had a special “encrypted messaging” feature that could only be accessed if the user held the device with both hands, which the Mossad used as cover for instructions to detonate the explosive.
In the explosion that followed, users would almost certainly “injure both hands,” one official said, and would therefore “be unable to fight.”
But it was not just Hezbollah fighters who died in the attack. The children, including eight-year-old Fatima Abdullah, were killed in the pager explosions.
The young woman was studying in her family’s kitchen at their home in the village of Saraain El Faouqa in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when she heard the beep of a wireless pager.
Her friend Ali Abdullah, nine, told Andalou: ‘Fatima was sitting on the sofa studying when the pager rang. He picked it up to give it to his father who was outside, but it exploded in his hand.
A man walks through rubble at a site damaged after Israeli attacks in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Debris piles up following Israeli strikes that targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut on October 6, 2024.
A view shows damaged buildings and vehicles following Israeli attacks in Beirut’s southern suburbs, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
Her aunt, also called Fatima, added: ‘Fatima had just returned from her first day of school, bursting with enthusiasm. She was an excellent student and everyone loved her.’
Since the explosions of September 17 and 18, violence between Hezbollah and Israel has escalated dramatically, and the two groups are currently fighting bitterly throughout southern Lebanon.
A huge fireball lit up the sky and plumes of smoke rose over southern Beirut overnight as Israel unleashed intense airstrikes on Hezbollah, nearly a year since the Gaza war broke out.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the international community to pressure Israel to establish a ceasefire as another attack hit the capital’s southern suburbs.
Israeli forces were on high alert ahead of Monday’s anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war.
After a devastating year-long conflict in Gaza, Israel has now turned its attention north to Hezbollah, Hamas’s Iranian-backed ally in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut was hit by more than 30 attacks, which were heard throughout the city. A gas station and a medical supply warehouse were affected.
People gather as smoke billows from a mobile store in Sidon, Lebanon, September 18, 2024.
Lebanese arrived at the blood donation center in Beirut to donate blood at the request of the Ministry of Public Health after the pager explosions.
“The attacks were like an earthquake,” said shopkeeper Mehdi Zeiter, 60.
Israel’s military said it attacked weapons storage facilities and infrastructure while taking measures “to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
AFPTV footage showed a huge fireball over a residential area, followed by a loud bang and secondary explosions. After dawn smoke was still coming out of the place.
In the Sabra area, near the southern suburbs, dozens of people, some carrying bags on foot and others on motorcycles, fled one of the most intense bombardments of the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli forces with artillery after they tried to infiltrate towards Khallat Shuaib in Blida, southern Lebanon.
A statement said fighters fired rockets at Israeli troops during the evacuation of “dead and wounded soldiers” in the Menara border area after midnight.
Hezbollah also said it launched assault drones at an Israeli military base.