Two former Israeli intelligence officials have revealed that the plot to equip Hezbollah’s walkie-talkies and pagers with explosives was a decade in the making.
Over two days in September, Israel detonated thousands of portable communications devices used by the terrorist group, killing at least 42 people, including 12 civilians, and injuring at least 4,000.
Victims of the simultaneous explosion plot, which was carried out by the Mossad and believed to have been carried out on the orders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lost limbs, hands and the use of their eyes.
Two former Mossad agents told CBS News that Hezbollah had unwittingly purchased more than 16,000 walkie-talkies “at a good price” from a fake company it controlled, named after a real Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, over a decade ago. suffered after an aggressive marketing campaign. campaign at the time, while about 5,000 pagers were purchased about two years ago.
Hezbollah, which has long been an enemy of Israel, used the low-level technology to communicate with its fighters to prevent intelligence gathering by its enemies.
One of the agents, who CBS called Gabriel, said, “When they buy from us, they have no idea they’re buying from Mossad. We make like (the movie) Truman Show, everything is controlled by us behind the scenes.’
His fellow ex-Mossad officer, whom CBS called Michael, added: “We have an incredible range of opportunities to create foreign companies that cannot in any way be traced back to Israel. Shell companies over shell companies to influence the supply chain to our advantage.
‘We create a fantasy world. We are a global manufacturing company. We write the screenplay, we are the directors, we are the producers, we are the protagonists and the world is our stage.’
One Mossad agent (pictured) said Hezbollah had no idea they were buying tampered communications equipment from Israel
At least 42 people, including 12 civilians, were killed in the pager explosions in September
Gabriel claimed that each device contained only enough explosive to hurt its users.
“We test everything triple, double, multiple times to make sure there is minimal damage.”
But CBS reported that Mossad made the ringtone urgent enough to force the user to check the devices just before they exploded.
After succeeding in the plan to build explosives into the walkie-talkies, and seeing that Hezbollah was looking for pagers, the Mossad decided to up the ante, according to the Washington Post.
The shadowy spy agency bought up lots of Taiwanese Apollo-branded pagers, piggybacking on a widely recognized trademark and product line with global distribution and no discernible ties to Israeli or Jewish interests that might have aroused Hezbollah’s suspicions.
The sales pitch to Hezbollah came from a Hezbollah-trusted marketing official with links to Apollo, whose name was not revealed by the sources the Post spoke to.
She sold the terror group the AR924 model, an Israeli official said: “She contacted Hezbollah and explained to them why the larger pager with the larger battery was better than the original model.”
One of the main selling points of the AR924 was that it allowed charging with a cable. And the batteries lasted longer,” the official said.
The Mossad pagers, each weighing less than an ounce, contained a battery that contained a small amount of a powerful explosive, enough to cause serious damage.
Remains of what is believed to be a pager carried by a Lebanese militant, which was detonated
Explosions rocked Lebanon in mid-September
At least 40 people were killed and thousands injured over two days in Lebanon in mid-September after Israel detonated explosives embedded in communications equipment.
Photo taken on September 18, 2024 shows a wireless communications device in the hand of a Hezbollah member, whose battery was removed after a wireless communications device exploded during a funeral in Beirut, Lebanon
The bomb battery component was reportedly so carefully hidden that it evaded Hezbollah’s attempts to disassemble and analyze the devices.
Another trick the Mossad had up its sleeve to ensure that as many people as possible were injured or killed was to ensure that the signal to activate the explosives required two hands.
The pagers had a special “coded messages” feature that could only be accessed if the user held the device with both hands, which the Mossad used as a cover for instructing them to detonate the explosive.
The ensuing explosion would almost certainly “injure both hands,” one official said, leaving users “unable to fight.”
But it was not just Hezbollah fighters who were killed in the attack. Children, including eight-year-old Fatima Abdullah, were killed in the pager explosions.
The young girl was studying in her family’s kitchen at their home in the village of Saraain El Faouqa in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley when she heard a wireless pager.
Her friend, nine-year-old Ali Abdullah, told Andalou: ‘Fatima was sitting on the sofa studying when the pager went off. She picked it up to give it to her father who was outside, but it exploded in her hand.”
Her aunt, also called Fatima, added: ‘Fatima had just returned from her first day of school full of enthusiasm. She was a top student and loved by everyone.’
Thousands were killed and injured in the pager explosions
Scenes posted on
The pager and walkie-talkie blasts brought Hezbollah to its knees, and last month the country signed a ceasefire with Israel to end the bitter war.
Since then, Lebanon has begun the recovery process. Today, Lebanon’s interim prime minister began a tour of military positions in the south of the country.
Najib Mikati on Monday made his first visit to the southern frontlines, where Lebanese soldiers are expected to be gradually deployed under the US-brokered deal, while Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces are expected to withdraw by the end of next month.
Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed frustration over continued Israeli attacks and overflights in the country.
“We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important of which is the withdrawal of the enemy (Israel) from all the countries he invaded during his recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun at a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern city. from Marjayoun. ‘Then the army can fully carry out its tasks.’
The Lebanese army has for years been dependent on financial aid to remain functional, mainly from the United States and other Western countries.
The Lebanese government hopes that the end of the war and the ceasefire will lead to more funding to increase the army’s capacity to deploy in the south, where Hezbollah’s armed units were particularly present.
Although not active fighters, the Lebanese army said dozens of soldiers have been killed in Israeli attacks on their turf or while patrolling convoys in the south.
The Israeli military acknowledged some of these attacks.