Israel’s Mossad spy agency reportedly planted small quantities of explosives inside 5,000 pagers ordered by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, five months before coordinated explosions rocked Lebanon and parts of Syria on Tuesday.
The blasts, which killed at least nine people and injured thousands, including nearly 100 in Syria, mark a significant security breach for Hezbollah, a group backed by Iran.
According to senior Lebanese security sources, the detonations were triggered when a coded message was sent to the pagers, activating the concealed explosives simultaneously. "Mossad injected a board inside the device that has explosive material which receives a code," a security source revealed. "It's very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner."
The pagers, reportedly ordered from Taiwan-based manufacturer Gold Apollo, were smuggled into Lebanon between April and May. An investigation revealed that the devices, identified as the AP924 model, were modified to house a small amount of PETN, a powerful explosive, which was hidden near the batteries.
Multiple sources, including various international news agencies, reported that the explosions were remotely triggered by increasing the temperature of the pager batteries.
Images of the destroyed pagers showed stickers consistent with those made by Gold Apollo, although the company has stated that the devices were manufactured by a European firm using its brand name.
While Hezbollah militants have long relied on pagers for low-tech communication to evade Israeli tracking, this breach marks a critical failure in the group’s counterintelligence.
In response to the attack, Hezbollah has vowed retaliation, with officials promising Israel "its fair punishment." Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the incident as "Israeli aggression," though Israeli authorities have yet to comment on the allegations.
This incident comes amid heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, exacerbated by the ongoing conflict following Hamas’s October 7 attack. The infiltration of Hezbollah’s communication system underscores Israel’s advanced intelligence capabilities, with parallels drawn to previous operations such as the 1996 assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Ayyash, in which Mossad allegedly used a mobile phone rigged with explosives.
The full scope of the pager blasts is still under investigation, but the incident has sent shockwaves through Hezbollah, with serious implications for the group's security and future operations.