Inside the most audacious strike in modern warfare: Shell companies the Israelis call ‘monkeys’, 5,000 deadly trojan horses and unparalleled ruthlessness

The scene is a hospital ward in Beirut. The atmosphere is one of destruction and chaos. Men lie on beds or slumped in wheelchairs, their clothes spattered with blood. One rolls onto his side: the end of his hand is frayed, torn, almost like paper. Stumps dangle where his fingers once were.

It’s just one of many videos from Lebanon that I’ve received from Middle Eastern sources over the past 24 hours. I see the visceral aftermath of one of the most audacious intelligence operations in history, but I also see something else—a clear message: Don’t mess with the state of Israel. The country’s security forces have a reputation for conducting operations with unparalleled ruthlessness and effectiveness. Over the past 24 hours, it seems, they’ve outdone themselves.

On Tuesday afternoon, explosions from Hezbollah fighters’ beepers echoed through Beirut. What happened next was an extraordinary sight: terrorists collapsing as they rummaged through fresh produce; falling over in the street as their pockets exploded; collapsing into a heap as they paid at the cash register.

Hezbollah is now reaping what it has sowed for others for so long. In the midst of the destruction, I thought, there was a certain irony.

By yesterday afternoon the death toll had risen to twelve and thousands of people were injured.

Then, incredibly, a second wave of explosions: around 5:30 p.m. local time, Hezbollah walkie-talkies began to blow up. Images of the detonated devices examined by Reuters showed an inner panel labeled “ICOM” and “Made in Japan.” Mossad apparently has access to more than one supply chain.

There are reports that Hezbollah used walkie-talkies as a backup communication system: who says the Mossad doesn’t have a sense of humor? But how did the Israelis do it? Although they haven’t claimed responsibility, believe me, it’s Israel.

No one is more certain of this than Hezbollah, which issued a statement shortly after the explosions. “After examining all the facts, data and information about the sinful attack that took place this afternoon,” it thundered, “we hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression.”

How did the Israelis manage to fill thousands of Hezbollah beepers with explosives and then distribute them to the group’s members in Lebanon?

The answer, as always in Israeli security operations, lies in meticulous planning, creativity and courage. All of these qualities were needed for this operation, because Hezbollah is much more than just a terrorist organization. It is a paramilitary group that also de facto rules the state of Lebanon.

This means it has a network of sourcing chains that it uses to obtain weapons, launder money and traffic drugs.

All of this requires several things, not the least of which is an equally large and opaque network of shell companies around the world. The Israelis know about this and call them “monkeys.” It is highly likely that Hezbollah would have used one of these companies to buy the thousands of beepers needed for their army of thugs.

Reports say that the Israelis compromised and penetrated this supply chain years ago and then sat idle, waiting. A few months ago, Hezbollah’s leadership decided it was time to replace cell phones with pagers. This, of course, was exactly what the Mossad had been waiting for. It was time to act. Saboteurs, working somewhere in the pager production supply chain, implanted one to two grams of explosives into more than 5,000 pagers shortly before these devices—now Israeli Trojans—were exported to Lebanon.

According to sources, the explosive material was PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which is very similar in structure to nitroglycerin and is extremely powerful, yet also very stable.

For months, members of this outlawed terrorist group unknowingly used the pagers for communication. It would have been a tense time for those keeping tabs on Jerusalem. If even one device had exploded ahead of time, the entire plot would have collapsed. But it didn’t; and then: D-Day. On Tuesday at 3:45 p.m. (local time), users received an unfamiliar message; many of them held the pager up to their faces. A few seconds later, instead of a “beep,” there was a “boom.”

There are many theories about what happened. One says that a code – say, “00000” or something like that – was sent to a small electronic card in the pagers, causing the machines to heat up rapidly and detonate the explosives.

Not surprisingly, most injuries were to the hands and face.

By last night, at least 14 people had been killed, including two children, and about 3,000 people were injured in Lebanon and Syria (where Hezbollah is also active).

About 200 people are in critical condition, while hundreds are believed to have been blinded by the explosions. In the village of Saraain, in eastern Lebanon, mourners gathered at the funeral of the youngest confirmed victim, nine-year-old Fatima Abdullah.

This is a disaster for Hezbollah. The pagers were most likely used by the highest ranking officers – meaning the maimed were likely major or lieutenant colonel and above.

According to Eyal Pinko, a former navy commander and intelligence officer in the IDF, “the entire backbone of Hezbollah was hit” by this attack. He added: “They will have to reset themselves. They will have to reset themselves to understand who is leading the battalions and military units. It will take time to recover.”

The operation, which reportedly involved hundreds of Israeli agents, is one of the most complex and impressive feats of modern warfare. It is unclear why the decision was made to set off the beepers on Tuesday.

US sources told the news website Axios that the decision to blow up the pagers was taken out of concern that the group’s covert operation would be discovered. The decision was described as a “use it or lose it” moment.

These sources suggested that Israeli officials initially planned to use the pagers as a surprise opening move in an all-out war. Other analysts suggest that the attack was a preemptive strike following intelligence that Hezbollah was planning to escalate the conflict between Israel and Lebanon on the northern border.

Pinko said: ‘I think culturally Hezbollah is a very suspicious organization by nature and if they had any suspicion about the explosives in the pagers, they would have stopped using them immediately. The idea that officers became suspicious is nice gossip, but I don’t think it’s true.’

Besides the practical effects on Hezbollah, there is of course also the enormous shame. The operation is being described as Hezbollah’s “biggest security breach.” And that comes after the Israelis beat up Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the center of Tehran on the day of the inauguration of the new Iranian president.

The Iranians and Hezbollah should beware: if this continues, they could face a “terror brain drain.” Internationally, all parties even remotely connected to the supply chain at the heart of the operation have been frantically distancing themselves from the events.

Branding from Taiwanese manufacturing company Gold Apollo was found on the compromised devices. Most were the company’s AR924 model, although three other models were in the shipment. Founder and president Hsu Ching-kuang has said that manufacturing was outsourced to BAC Consulting, which has an address in Budapest.

He added that he considered himself a “victim” of the incident and planned to sue BAC. However, he acknowledged that the payments had gone through the Middle East, saying: “The transfer was very strange.”

On BAC Consulting’s website, the company said it was involved in “bridging technology and innovation from Asia.” The company’s registered address was a two-story building in Budapest; the name was on the glass door on an A4 sheet.

About three years ago, BAC was given permission to sell its own products under the Gold Apollo brand. Gold Apollo makes a wide range of devices, including pagers – wireless devices that can send messages without an internet connection, often used by emergency services and hospitals.

According to preliminary investigations by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, there is no known record of shipments of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon.

British-educated Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono is chief executive of BAC Consulting. She told NBC News: ‘I don’t make the pagers. I’m just the middleman. I think you’re wrong.’

What now? Among the wounded was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, who lost an eye in the first strike. Let us not forget that Iran launched a direct massive missile attack on Israel in April, after the Israelis hit a target in the Iranian consulate in Syria.

Iran has also vowed revenge for Haniyeh’s assassination – and has done nothing so far. Tehran may now feel the pressure to respond is too great to resist.

Yesterday I interviewed Foreign Secretary David Lammy for the Mail’s new weekly world news podcast, 90 Seconds To Midnight.

As we discussed Britain’s role in an increasingly dangerous world, my producer Bella Soames had to update me twice with more news about the carnage in Lebanon. Once again, the irony was not lost on me.

As expected, there are those – especially within the EU and the UN – who are targeting Israel and criticizing Jerusalem for its “escalation” and other abuses that are not accepted by the bloodless officials who form the top leadership of these organizations.

But remember: Israel is a country at war; it is a British ally and it is fighting the forces of extremism and terror that we ourselves have suffered. What happened yesterday was an astonishing feat of creativity and intelligence against a vicious terrorist group that opposes all the values ​​we hold dear.

The world is approaching midnight; in fact, we are moving toward it faster.

So let us support all those who are on the right side of the war that, whether we like it or not, we have been waging for years – otherwise it could swallow us all up.

Find 90 Seconds to Midnight wherever you get your podcasts now.