Israel planted explosives in 5,000 Hezbollah pagers, sources tell Reuters

Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, according to a senior Lebanese security source and another source who spoke to Reuters.

The operation, an unprecedented breach of Hezbollah’s security, caused thousands of pagers to detonate across Lebanon, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others, including Hezbollah fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.

The Lebanese security source said the pagers were sourced from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. However, Gold Apollo stated it did not manufacture the devices. The company said the pagers were made by BAC, a company licensed to use its brand, but provided no further details.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, which declined to comment on the blasts.

In a statement Wednesday, Hezbollah said, "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."

The plot had been in the works for many months, according to several sources who spoke to Reuters.

The senior Lebanese security source said Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Gold Apollo, which were brought into the country earlier this year.

Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosions were made by a European company licensed to use the firm’s brand. He did not immediately confirm the name of the company.

In a statement, the company identified BAC as the firm, though Hsu declined to comment on its location.

The senior Lebanese security source identified a photograph of the pager model, the AP924, which, like other pagers, wirelessly receives and displays text messages but cannot make phone calls. Gold Apollo said in a statement that the AP924 model was produced and sold by BAC.

Hezbollah fighters have used pagers as a low-tech means of communication to avoid Israeli location tracking, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters earlier this year.

However, the senior Lebanese source said Israel's Mossad had modified the pagers "at the production level."

“The Mossad inserted a board inside the device containing explosives that could be triggered by a code. It’s very difficult to detect through any standard means, even with scanners,” the source said.

The source added that 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent, activating the explosives simultaneously.

Another security source told Reuters that up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the new pagers and had gone undetected by Hezbollah for months.

Israeli officials did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo.

Reuters