Israel planted explosives inside thousands of pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s unprecedented attack in Lebanon, according to sources cited by Reuters and US media.
The operation, which the Lebanese group blamed on Israel’s spy agency the Mossad, marked a major security breach. Thousands of pagers detonated across Lebanon and also in Syria, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others, including the group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut. Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said a young girl was among the dead, and that more than 200 people had critical injuries.
Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind the blasts. It said it was carrying out a “security and scientific investigation” into the causes of the blasts and Israel would receive “its fair punishment”. The Lebanese information minister, Ziad Makary, condemned the attack as an “Israeli aggression”. The Israeli military has not commented directly on the blasts but said senior commanders had held a situational assessment “focusing on readiness in both offence and defence in all arenas”.
The Taiwanese manufacturer linked to the pagers that exploded said the devices were made by a company in Europe.
Images of the pagers emerged in the aftermath with stickers on the back appearing consistent with pagers made by the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, according to analysis by Reuters.
On Wednesday, the company’s founder, Hsu Ching-kuang, denied it had made the pagers, saying they were manufactured by a company in Europe that had the right to use its brand. “The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” he said. “We are a responsible company. This is very embarrassing.”
The blasts appeared to exploit the low-tech pagers that Hezbollah has adopted in order to prevent the targeted assassinations of its members, who could be tracked by mobile phone signals. Those wounded in the attack included Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, according to reports.
A Hezbollah source said they believed the attack was in response to an alleged assassination attempt by the Shia militia on a former top Israeli defence official, revealed on Tuesday by the Israeli Shin Bet security agency. (The Guardian)