Paris:

It’s around 3:30 in the afternoon on September 17. People in Lebanon are going about their daily business, doing the shopping, having a haircut, conducting meetings.

Hundreds of pagers across the country, and even outside its borders, then simultaneously bleep with a message and explode, wounding and killing their owners and also bystanders.

The communications devices were used by members of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, which swiftly blamed Israel for the operation, as did several international media organisations.

Israel, according to its convention for operations outside its borders, neither confirmed nor denied the charge.

But observers say that the simultaneous explosions bear all the hallmarks of an operation by Israel, which appears to have infiltrated the supply chain of the pager production and inserted tiny but potent explosives inside.

Israel may have even set up a shell company to supply the devices to Hezbollah in a years-long project that would seem fantastical even in an espionage thriller, according to analysts.

But that was not the end. A day later, on September 18, around the same time in the afternoon, another low-fi gadget, the walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah cadres, exploded, even amid the funerals for those killed in the pager attacks.

The subsequent day, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who himself had told group members to use low-fi devices so as not to be targeted by Israel through the positioning of their smartphones, made his first public comments, admitting an “unprecedented blow” but also vowing “tough retribution and just punishment” for Israel.

Even though there is next to no doubt Israel was behind the operation, questions abounded. Why now? Is this the start of the widely-feared Israeli offensive into southern Lebanon? Or has Israel simply activated the explosives now simply because it feared the whole operation risked being compromised?

‘IN THE MIDST OF THEIR ORDINARY LIVES’

The explosions were felt Hezbollah’s strongholds throughout Lebanon: the southern Beirut suburbs, the south of the country and the Bekaa Valley in the east, as well as in Syria.

At least 37 people were killed in the two attacks and thousands injured.

The wounded included Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. But those killed also included a 10-year-old girl and another child. As the hospitals filled up the most common wounds were mutilated hands and eyes.

“Hezbollah suffered a very serious blow on a tactical level, a very impressive and comprehensive one that affects the operational side, the cognitive side,” said Yoram Schweitzer, a former intelligence officer now at the The Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Peter Harling, founder of the Synaps Lab think tank added: “The targets may have been Hezbollah members, but many were caught in the midst of their ordinary lives, and in the heart of their communities.”

“This is also a breach that is extraordinarily hard to explain.”

UN rights chief Volker Turk warned that the simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals “whether civilians or members of armed groups” without knowledge as to who was around them at the time “violates international human rights law”.

International humanitarian law prohibits the use of “booby traps” precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and “produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon”, said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch.

‘ISRAELI FRONT’

Espionage professionals have meanwhile expressed their admiration for how the operation was put together.

“It’s not a technological feat,” said a person working for a European intelligence service, asking not to be named. But “it’s the result of human intelligence and heavy logistics.”

The small devices, bearing the name of the firm Gold Apollo in Taiwan, were intercepted by Israeli services before their arrival in Lebanon, according to multiple security sources who spoke to AFP, asking not to be named.

But the Taiwanese company denied having manufactured them and pointed to its Hungarian partner BAC.

Founded in 2022, the company is registered in Budapest. Its CEO, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, appears there as the only employee.

The devices in question have never been on Hungarian soil, according to the Hungarian authorities.

The New York Times, citing three intelligence sources, said BAC was “part of an Israeli front” with at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers who were Israeli intelligence officers.

It described the pagers as a “modern day Trojan Horse” after the wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks to enter the city of Troy in the Trojan War.

‘IMPRESSIVE OPERATION’

The attack comes nearly a year after Hezbollah ally Hamas carried out its October 7 attack on Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.

The focus of Israel’s firepower has since been on the Palestinian territory, but Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops have exchanged fire almost daily across the border region since October, forcing thousands on both sides to flee their homes.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the focus of the war was shifting towards Lebanon, while the government said securing the northern front was a key objective, in order to allow Israelis evacuated from the area to return home.

Schweitzer said that despite the spectacular nature of the device operation it did not represent the end of Israel’s work to degrade Hezbollah.

“I don’t think this impressive operation that has its tactical gains… is getting into the strategic layers yet.

“It does not change the equation, it is not a decisive victory. But it sends another signal to Hezbollah, Iran and others,” he said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

People gather outside American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) in Beirut, after hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source and a witness said, Lebanon on September 18, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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Beirut:

A second wave of device explosions killed 14 people and wounded more than 450 others on Wednesday in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, officials said, stoking fears of an all-out war with Israel.

A source close to Hezbollah said walkie-talkies used by its members blew up in its Beirut stronghold, with state media reporting similar blasts in south and east Lebanon.

AFPTV footage showed people running for cover when an explosion went off during a funeral for Hezbollah militants in south Beirut in the afternoon.

Fourteen people were killed and more than 450 wounded in the latest attacks, the health ministry said, also describing the devices targeted as walkie-talkies.

They came a day after the simultaneous explosion of hundreds of paging devices used by Hezbollah killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded up to 2,800 others across Lebanon, in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel.

There was no comment from Israel, which only hours before Tuesday’s attacks had announced it was broadening the aims of its war with Hamas in Gaza to include its fight against the Palestinian group’s ally Hezbollah.

“The centre of gravity is moving northward,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to an air base on Wednesday. “We are at the start of a new phase in the war.”

Israeli officials have remained tight-lipped about the explosions which led the television news bulletins and dominated newspaper headlines.

Amos Harel of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had put “Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of all-out war”.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since Palestinian militants attacked Israel on October 7, sparking the war in Gaza.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warned the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war”.

Hezbollah said Israel was “fully responsible for this criminal aggression” and vowed revenge.

The influx of so many casualties all at once overwhelmed hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds.

At a Beirut hospital, doctor Joelle Khadra said “the injuries were mainly to the eyes and hands, with finger amputations, shrapnel in the eyes — some people lost their sight.”

A doctor at another hospital in the Lebanese capital said he had worked through the night and that the injuries were “out of this world — never seen anything like it”.

– Heavy blow –

Analysts said operatives had likely planted explosives on the paging devices before they were delivered to Hezbollah.

“This was more than lithium batteries being forced into override,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute.

“A small plastic explosive was almost certainly concealed alongside the battery, for remote detonation via a call or page,” the analyst said, adding Israel’s spy agency “Mossad infiltrated the supply chain”.

Among the dead was the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when her father’s pager exploded, the family and a source close to the group said.

Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut, Mojataba Amani, who was wounded, said on social media platform X that it was “a source of pride for me that my blood was mixed with that of the wounded Lebanese” in what he called a “horrific terrorist crime”.

The attack dealt a heavy blow to Hezbollah, which already had concerns about the security of its communications after losing several key commanders to targeted air strikes in recent months.

The preliminary findings of a Lebanese investigation into the blasts found the pagers had been booby-trapped, a security official said.

“Data indicates the devices were pre-programmed to detonate and contained explosive materials planted next to the battery,” the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, said the pagers were “recently imported” and appeared to have been “sabotaged at source”.

After The New York Times reported the pagers had been ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo, the company said they had been produced by its Hungarian partner BAC Consulting KFT.

A government spokesman in Budapest said the company was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary”.

As fears again surged of a regional conflagration nearly a year into the Gaza war, Lufthansa and Air France announced the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran and Beirut until Thursday.

– ‘Extremely volatile’ –

Since October, the unabating exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah have killed hundreds of mostly fighters in Lebanon, and dozens including soldiers on the Israeli side.

They have also forced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border to flee their homes.

United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said Tuesday’s attack had come at an “extremely volatile time”, calling the blasts “shocking” and their impact on civilians “unacceptable”.

UN chief Antonio Guterres urged governments “not to weaponise civilian objects”.

Senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy will meet on Thursday in Paris to discuss the spiralling tensions in the Middle East, sources said, ahead of a UN Security Council meeting planned for Friday.

The October 7 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.

In Gaza on Wednesday, the civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter killed five people, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)