Thousands of people were wounded and a dozen killed in the country of Lebanon when their pagers exploded simultaneously on Sept. 17 (Tuesday). Experts believe that Israel was likely responsible.
The pagers had been bought by the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and operates in the Shiite Muslim community of Lebanon and other countries. It has been actively fighting against Israel through various means, including a bombing that killed 12 children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights this July.
“Mossad [Israel’s spy agency] infiltrated the supply chain,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute in comments to The Times of Israel. “A small plastic explosive was almost certainly concealed alongside the battery, for remote detonation via a call or page.”
Hezbollah confirmed that two of its members had been killed in the event, including one who was a member of the Lebanese parliament.
Paul Pillar, who spent 28 years in U.S. intelligence, mainly at the CIA, told Reuters that the event “demonstrates Israel’s ability to infiltrate its adversaries in a remarkably dramatic way.”
It is not known how many innocents were harmed by the explosions. An 8-year-old girl was among the dead.
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Hezbollah has encouraged its members to use pagers instead of cell phones, given that the latter are easy to track by Israeli military forces, which makes their users vulnerable to airstrikes.
The pagers in question, the AP924 model, were bought in a batch of 5,000 from Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, but the devices themselves were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, in Budapest, Hungary, according to the company’s president Hsu Ching-kuang.
Commenting on the event, Hsu said, “We are not a big company, but we are a responsible company that cares about our products.”
