How Israel’s pager trick fooled Hezbollah in Lebanon: New details emerge

Exactly one month ago, on September 17, a coordinated attack using armed pagers triggered simultaneous explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds. The devices that detonated after beeping to signal incoming messages caused 39 deaths and more than 3,400 injuries. Many victims suffered serious injuries, including eye damage, missing fingers, and open abdominal wounds, reflecting their proximity to the devices at the time of the explosions.

The explosives were hidden inside the pagers, which had been delivered to Lebanon earlier that year as part of an Israeli strategy aimed at decimating Hezbollah. The agents who made the pagers developed a battery that concealed a small but powerful charge of plastic explosive, along with a novel detonator that was undetectable by X-rays, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the devices and photographs of the disassembly of the pager. battery. package examined by the Reuters news agency.

To address the problem of not having a credible backstory for the bulky new product, they created fake online stores, pages and posts that led Hezbollah to think the devices were legitimate, as a Reuters review of web archives revealed. .

The hidden design and features of the pager bomb and carefully crafted battery cover, described here for the first time, reveal details about a years-long operation that has dealt unprecedented blows to Israel’s Iran-backed enemy in Lebanon and has increased tensions in the Middle East, bringing it closer to a regional war.

Pager design with explosive mechanism hidden inside

A thin, square piece containing six grams of white plastic pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) explosive was sandwiched between two rectangular battery cells, according to a Lebanese source and photographs.

The space between the battery cells, not visible in the photos, was filled with a highly flammable strip that acted as a detonator, the source said.

This three-layer assembly was placed in a black plastic sleeve and covered with a metal casing the size of a matchbox, photographs showed.

The design was unusual because it did not use a standard miniaturized detonator, which is usually a metal cylinder, according to the source and two bomb experts. All three spoke on condition of anonymity.

Without metal parts, the material used to cause the detonation had one advantage: like plastic explosives, it could not be detected by X-rays.

Concerns over pager control and Hezbollah battery depletion

When Hezbollah received the pagers in February, they checked for explosives, two people familiar with the matter said, scanning them with airport security devices to see if they set off any alarms. Nothing suspicious was found.

The devices were likely designed to create a spark inside the battery pack, which would ignite the detonating material and cause the PETN sheet to explode, the two bomb experts said after reviewing the pager bomb’s design.

Since the explosives and packaging took up about a third of the volume, the battery contained only a small fraction of the energy expected for its 35-gram weight, according to two battery experts.

“There is a significant amount of unaccounted for mass,” said Paul Christensen, a lithium battery expert at Britain’s University of Newcastle.

At one point, Hezbollah noticed that the battery was draining faster than expected, according to a Lebanese source. However, this did not appear to cause major security concerns, as the group continued to issue pagers to its members just hours before the attack.

Deadly explosions hit Lebanon

On September 17, thousands of pagers exploded at the same time in Beirut’s southern suburbs and other Hezbollah areas, mainly after they beeped, indicating an incoming message. Many victims were rushed to hospital with eye injuries, missing fingers or deep abdominal wounds, suggesting they were near the devices when they exploded. In total, the pager attack, along with a second attack the next day using armed walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and injured more than 3,400.

Two Western security sources said the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was behind the attacks using pagers and walkie-talkies. The day after the attacks, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised Mossad’s “very impressive” results, which many in Israel saw as an indication of the agency’s role.

U.S. officials said they were not informed of the operation beforehand.

The weak link

From the outside, the pager’s power source looked like a regular lithium-ion battery used in many consumer electronic devices. However, the battery, labeled LI-BT783, had a problem: it was not available on the market.

Hezbollah has strict procedures for verifying what they buy, according to a former Israeli intelligence officer who was not involved in the pager operation.

“You have to make sure that if they look, they find something,” the former spy said, requesting anonymity. “Not finding anything is not good.”

Creating backstories or “legends” for undercover agents has long been an important skill for spy agencies. What made the pager scheme unusual is that these abilities were used with common consumer electronics.

For the pagers, agents deceived Hezbollah by selling a custom-made model, AR-924, under a well-known Taiwanese brand, Gold Apollo.

The Golden Apollo Connection

Gold Apollo President Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters a day after the pager attack that about three years ago, a former employee named Teresa Wu and her “big boss, named Tom,” approached him to discuss a license agreement.

Hsu said he had little information about Wu’s boss, but he allowed them to design their own products and sell them under the well-known Gold Apollo brand. Reuters could not identify the manager or confirm whether they or Wu knew they were working with Israeli intelligence.

The president said he wasn’t impressed by the AR-924 when he first saw it, but he still added photos and a description of the product to his company’s website, which helped make it more visible and credible. However, there was no way to purchase the AR-924 directly from their website.

Hsu claimed he knew nothing about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the broader operation against Hezbollah. He described his company as a victim of the scheme.

Gold Apollo declined to comment further. Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered and she has not made any statements to the media since the attacks.

‘I know this product’

In September 2023, pages and images of the AR-924 and its battery were added to apollosystemshk.com, a website that claims to have a license to distribute Gold Apollo products, including the rugged pager and its large power supply, according to a review from Reuters. of Internet records and metadata.

The website included a Hong Kong address for a company called Apollo Systems HK. However, there is no company with that name at that address or in Hong Kong corporate records.

Wu also listed the website on his Facebook page and in public incorporation records when he registered a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year.

A section of the apollosystemshk.com website focused on the LI-BT783 battery, highlighting its excellent performance. Unlike older disposable batteries used in pagers, it claimed to last 85 days and could be recharged via a USB cable, according to the website and a 90-second promotional video on YouTube.

By the end of 2023, two battery stores included the LI-BT783 in their catalogs, according to Reuters. Additionally, two online forums dedicated to batteries discussed the power source, although it was not available for sale. A user named Mikevog wrote in April 2023: “I know this product. “It has an excellent data sheet and excellent performance.” Reuters was unable to identify Mikevog.

The website, online stores and discussion forums appeared to be part of a deception effort, a former Israeli intelligence officer and two Western security officials told Reuters. The websites have been taken down since pager bombs caused chaos in Lebanon, but archived and cached versions can still be accessed.

Hezbollah leaders regret purchasing the pagers and have launched internal investigations to discover how the security breach occurred and identify possible spies.

Earlier this year, Hezbollah switched to pagers after realizing that Israeli forces were intercepting their mobile phone communications, as the Reuters news agency previously reported.

Investigations revealed that Israeli agents used aggressive sales tactics to ensure that Hezbollah’s procurement manager chose the AR-924 pager. A person familiar with the situation said the seller made a very low offer for the pagers “and kept lowering the price until he was convinced.”

Lebanese authorities condemned the attacks, calling them a serious violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty. On September 19, just before being assassinated by Israel, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stated that the device explosions could be seen as a “declaration of war” and vowed to retaliate against Israel.

Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire, with the militant group launching rockets at Israeli military positions in support of its ally Hamas.

Following the attacks, Israel launched a war against Hezbollah, including a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and airstrikes that have killed many of its top leaders.

The ongoing internal investigation faced a setback on September 28 when Nabil Kaouk, the senior Hezbollah official leading the procurement probe, was killed in an Israeli airstrike just 11 days after the pager attack.

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