Thousands of people were reported injured by pagers exploding in Lebanon and Syria. Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad announced that nine people, including a child, were killed and approximately 2,800 people were injured as a result of the explosions. This development was reported by the Lebanese state news agency NNA.
On Tuesday evening, The New York Times brought up a significant allegation regarding the incident. According to the report, Israel had hidden explosives in new Taiwanese-made pagers imported to Lebanon during an operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday. Details of the operation, confirmed by American and other officials, revealed how Israel used the devices.
According to Reuters, senior Lebanese security sources and another source who did not disclose their names, Hezbollah imported 5,000 pagers this spring. The devices were said to have come from Taiwan-based firm Gold Apollo. However, the sources claimed that the devices were modified by Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad before shipment and were loaded with up to three grams of explosives.
But Gold Apollo CEO Hsu Ching-Kuang told a news conference in Taiwan that the exploding devices were not manufactured by his company. According to Reuters, Hsu said the devices were manufactured by another company in Europe and used only the Gold Apollo brand. CNN reported that a distributor that began importing products from Hsu’s company three years ago has since started manufacturing its own devices.
According to CNN, the attack was reportedly a joint operation by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and the Israeli army. The pagers in question were designed as low-tech communication tools to evade spyware or location detection. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly told his members in a speech earlier this year: “This mobile phone is a collaborator and a killer.”
According to Reuters’ sources, the explosions occurred after 15:30 local time and went off after 3,000 pagers received a coded message that appeared to have been sent by Hezbollah’s leadership, the New York Times reported.
The blasts came amid Hezbollah’s months-long war with Israel. The incident coincided with the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said time was running out for a diplomatic solution. The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the blasts, CNN reported.
Images of attacks carried out with pagers were shared on social media
Videos of the moments and aftermath of the attack quickly spread on social media and news outlets. One video shows a man checking his pager while paying at a store, before the device explodes and he is thrown backwards. Another video, shared by the New York Times, shows a man injured when a device explodes in his bag at a market.