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More devices explode in fresh attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon

Second wave comes a day after 12 people were killed in similar blasts caused by pagers made by a Hungarian company.

Lebanon was hit with a fresh wave of exploding telecommunications devices including walkie-talkies a day after 12 people were killed and thousands injured in a series of similar blasts.

Scores of people were wounded on Wednesday in the eastern Bekaa area and in a southern town as well as Beirut’s suburbs, state-run National News Agency reported. The fresh wave coincided with several funerals organized by the militant group Hezbollah for members killed in the initial attack the previous day, with hundreds of people taking part in the processions.

Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria but that another company based in Budapest manufactured them.

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Lebanon’s health minister says the death toll had increased to 12 people, including two children, and wounding more than 2,000. Health Minister Firas Abiad said that two-thirds of the wounded needed hospitalization.

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Officials pointed the finger at Israel in what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack. The Israeli military declined to comment.

Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire daily, coming close to a full-blown war on several occasions and forcing tens of thousands on both sides of the border to evacuate their homes.

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Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Iran accuses the U.S. and the West of supporting pager attack

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused the U.S. and its allies of backing the exploding pagers attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.

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“Using devices, made for welfare of human beings, as a tool for assassination and annihilation” of those who don’t hold the same views of the U.S., Israel and the West is “an indication of the collapse of humanity as well domination of savagery and barbarism,” the website of the president quoted him as saying Wednesday.

“The incident once again showed that western nations and Americans fully support crime, killings and blind assassinations by the Zionist regime, in practice,” Pezeshkian added.

Iran is the chief supporter of Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group that Israel sees it as its most direct threat. Many of the group’s fighters were killed and injured in Tuesday’s explosions.

Iran has already sent a group of Iranian medics to Lebanon to help victims of the explosions.

Israeli military says it has intercepted 2 suspicious drones

Israel’s military said Wednesday it had intercepted two suspicious drones that approached Israel from Lebanon and Iraq on Wednesday morning. Another drone launched from Iraq was intercepted by Israeli air force fighter jets. There were no injuries or damage reported. Israel also began moving more troops to the northern border with Lebanon in preparation for a possible retaliation.

What brand were the pagers used in the explosion?

Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday in a statement it had authorized use of its brand on the AR-924 pager model and a Budapest, Hungary-based company called BAC Consulting produced and sold the pagers. Further information on BAC wasn’t immediately available.

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“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,” the statement read.

Gold Apollo chair Hsu Ching-kuang told journalists Wednesday that his company has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years, but did not provide evidence of the contract.

Families of victims who were injured Monday by their exploded handheld pagers, wait at the...
Families of victims who were injured Monday by their exploded handheld pagers, wait at the emergency entrance of the American University hospital, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (Hussein Malla / AP)

The AR-924 pager, advertised as being “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications once advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was apparently taken down Tuesday after the sabotage attack. It could receive text messages of up to 100 characters and claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life. That’s something that would be crucial in Lebanon, where electricity outages have been common as the tiny nation on the Mediterranean Sea has faced years of economic collapse.

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Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies — one of the reasons why many hospitals worldwide still rely on them.

Why does Hezbollah uses pagers and not cellphones?

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track the group’s movements. As a result, the organization uses pagers to communicate.

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Nicholas Reese, adjunct instructor at the Center for Global Affairs in New York University’s School of Professional Studies, said smart phones carry a higher risk for intercepted communications in contrast to the simpler technology of pagers.

This type of attack will also force Hezbollah to change their communication strategies, said Reese, who previously worked as an intelligence officer, adding that survivors of Tuesday’s explosions are likely to throw away “not just their pagers, but their phones, and leaving their tablets or any other electronic devices.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track the group’s movements. As a result, the organization uses pagers to communicate.

A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the exploded devices were from a new brand the group had not used before. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, did not identify the brand name or supplier.

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How could sabotage cause these pagers to explode?

Even with a U.S. official confirming it was a planned operation by Israel, multiple theories have emerged around how the attack might have been carried out. Several experts who spoke with The Associated Press explained how the explosions were most likely the result of supply-chain interference.

Very small explosive devices may have been built into the pagers prior to their delivery to Hezbollah, and then all remotely triggered simultaneously, possibly with a radio signal.

By the time of the attack, “the battery was probably half-explosive and half-actual battery,” said Carlos Perez, director of security intelligence at TrustedSec.

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A former British Army bomb disposal officer explained that an explosive device has five main components: A container, a battery, a triggering device, a detonator and an explosive charge.

“A pager has three of those already,” said the ex-officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he now works as a consultant with clients on the Middle East. “You would only need to add the detonator and the charge.”

How long was this operation?

It would take a long time to plan an attack of this scale. The exact specifics are still unknown, but experts who spoke with the AP shared estimates ranging anywhere between several months to two years.

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The sophistication of the attack suggests that the culprit has been collecting intelligence for a long time, Reese said. An attack of this caliber requires building the relationships needed to gain physical access to the pagers before they were sold; developing the technology that would be embedded in the devices; and developing sources who can confirm that the targets were carrying the pagers.

People gather around an ambulance carrying wounded people whose handheld pager exploded, at...
People gather around an ambulance carrying wounded people whose handheld pager exploded, at the emergency entrance of the American University hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024.(Hassan Ammar / AP)

And it’s likely the compromised pagers seemed normal to their users for some time before the attack. Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based veteran and a senior political risk analyst with over 37 years experience in the region, said he has had conversations with members of Hezbollah and survivors of Tuesday’s pager attack. He said the pagers were procured more than six months ago.

“The pagers functioned perfectly for six months,” Magnier said. What triggered the explosion, he said, appeared to be an error message sent to all the devices.

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Based on his conversations with Hezbollah members, Magnier also said that many pagers didn’t go off, allowing the group to inspect them. They came to the conclusion that between 3 to 5 grams of a highly explosive material were concealed or embedded in the circuitry, he said.

Jenzen-Jones also adds that “such a large-scale operation also raises questions of targeting” — stressing the number of causalities and enormous impact reported so far.

“How can the party initiating the explosive be sure that a target’s child, for example, is not playing with the pager at the time it functions?” he said.

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