The Israeli secret service didn’t just tamper with the deadly Hezbollah pagers — they made them from scratch, having set up a complex web of shell companies across Europe, it was claimed today.
Initially it was suspected that Mossad had managed to intercept and plant tiny bombs in a shipment of the pagers headed for the Iranian-backed terror group in Lebanon after thousands of people were injured and dozens killed.
But now it appears that the Israelis set up front companies across Europe to manufacture the pagers themselves, embedding small amounts of PETN explosive inside, ready to be detonated by a coded message.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any role in the explosions, but 12 current and former defence and intelligence officials told the New York Times that the Israelis were behind it, describing the operation as ‘complex and long’.
Following the series of explosions, Lebanese civilians have been living in terror as they fear that the ‘technological war’ could be a precursor to a full-scale conflict.
A man is injured after his pager exploded in Beirut on Tuesday
Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, who studied in London and lists ‘disaster management’ as one of her skills, is listed as the Chief Executive of the Hungarian-based company BAC Consulting initially believed to have supplied the devices to the Lebanese group. She denies any knowledge of the alleged plot
An undated file image of an Apollo pager, similar to the ones that exploded on September 17
Chaotic scenes inside a shop as a pager explodes in Lebanon on Tuesday
A pager destroyed in a blast on Tuesday. Some 2,800 people were injured in the blasts
Chaotic scenes inside hospitals in Lebanon are seen on Tuesday evening following blasts
A person is carried on a stretcher outside American University of Beirut Medical Center after attacks on Tuesday
A dozen people were killed as explosions rocked Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday
Israeli spies were already working on their ingenious plan long before February when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that Israel was using cellphone networks to pinpoint the locations of his operatives.
‘You ask me where the agent is,’ Nasrallah told his followers in a publicly-televised address.
‘I tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife’s hands, and in your children’s hands is the agent.’
Then he urged them: ‘Bury it. Put it in an iron box and lock it.’
He had been pushing for years for Hezbollah to invest instead in pagers, which for all their limited capabilities could receive data without giving away a user’s location or other compromising information.
According to the New York Times, one of the Mossad shell companies was B.A.C. Consulting in Budapest, Hungary, set up to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo.
Gold Apollo’s chair, Hsu Ching-kuang, told journalists Wednesday the firm has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years.
‘According to the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,’ Gold Apollo said in a statement.
At least two other shell companies, one in Sofia headed by a Norwegian businessman were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.
It is not known how involved in or aware of the ultimate plan were the legitimate business people running the companies, such as British-educated physicist Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, who has denied any knowledge of the plot.
B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But for Mossad the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary.
Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers speaking to the NYT.
The pagers began shipping to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small numbers, but production was quickly ramped up after Mr. Nasrallah made his speech denouncing cellphones.
Not only did Nasrallah ban cellphones from meetings of Hezbollah militants, he ordered that the details of the group’s movements and plans never be communicated over mobiles and that officers must carry pagers at all times, unwittingly playing even further into the hands of the Israelis.
A man is injured after his pager exploded in Beirut, Lebanon on Tuesday
Lebanese media reported that Israel managed to hack pagers and cause them to explode
Hezbollah fighters carry the coffins of a person killed after hundreds of pagers exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, on September 18
Devices began beeping on Tuesday afternoon. Trying to turn them off caused detonation
The aftermath of the second wave of explosions on Wednesday, in Baalbek, Lebanon
Over this summer, shipments of the pagers to Lebanon increased, with thousands arriving in the country and being distributed among Hezbollah officers and their allies, according to two American intelligence officials speaking to the New York Times.
To Hezbollah, they were a defensive measure, but in Israel, intelligence officers referred to the pagers as ‘buttons’ that could be pushed when the time seemed ripe.
That moment came this week.
To set off the explosions, according to three intelligence and defence officials, Israel triggered the pagers to beep and sent a message to them in Arabic that appeared as though it had come from Hezbollah’s senior leadership.
Seconds later, Lebanon was in chaos. Some 2,800 people were injured and a dozen killed as explosions rippled through the country and parts of Syria.
Emergency services were further strained as walkie-talkies also used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday, injuring 450 and killing nine.
Thousands were left with horrific injuries to their eyes, faces and hands in the two waves of clandestine attacks.
In news which is bound to further fuel tensions, it was also revealed today that Iran allegedly recruited an Israeli civilian to assassinate prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the individual arrested last month.
As tensions ratchet up after almost a year of cross-border fighting, Israel has been moving more troops and tanks to its northern frontier and unleashed blistering airstrikes on Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon overnight.
With the increased activity and blasts increasingly viewed as heralding a return to all-out war, last seen 18 years ago, Lebanese officials are now pleading for an intervention from the UN and say their country is preparing for the worst.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati today called on the UN to oppose Israel’s ‘technological war’ on his country.
He said in a statement ahead of the UN Security Council meeting tomorrow that the UN should ‘take a firm stance to stop the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the technological war it is waging’.
Many in Lebanon are now living in fear of a third wave of attacks. Worried that yet more devices could be booby-trapped, panicked Hezbollah fighters have torn the batteries from their walkie-talkies and thrown them into open spaces.
Civilians have spoken of their terror that their mobile phones and other home devices could effectively be turned into bombs, with reports that many are removing their batteries and Lebanese SIM cards.
‘We don’t know if we can stay next to our laptops, our phones. Everything seems like a danger at this point and no one knows what to do,’ one local told the BBC.
Writing for MailOnline, journalist Hassan Harfoush described people’s terror over the last two days.
‘Beirut has collapsed into panic. The WhatsApp groups are going non-stop. There are wild rumours doing the rounds that solar panels might explode, batteries, fridges – anything. There’s fake news saying phones have exploded.
‘I know it’s stupid but I even told my parents to get a fire extinguisher, just in case something blows up in the house,’ he added.
‘We’re all really scared; there is no safe place any more. Everyone knows what these explosions can do. In a Beirut hospital, I saw a man whose flesh had been torn from his face, the bones gruesomely visible. He was still conscious.’