CNN Reports: Israel Behind Deadly Pager Explosions That Targeted Hezbollah and Injured Thousands in Lebanon
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Israel Behind Deadly Pager Explosions That Targeted Hezbollah and Injured Thousands in Lebanon
September 18, 2024 at 10:43 AM
Hezbollah has vowed to respond to an Israeli attack that killed multiple people and injured thousands across Lebanon on Tuesday when pagers belonging to members of the Iran-backed militant group exploded almost simultaneously, exposing a massive security breach and demonstrating the scale of Israeli intelligence.
A child was among at least nine killed in the blasts, which wounded about 2,800 people, Lebanese Health Minister, Firass Abiad, said.
At least 170 people are in a critical condition, he said, though the nature of the other injuries is unclear.
The attack underscores Hezbollah’s vulnerability as its communication network was compromised to deadly effect and follows a series of targeted assassinations against its commanders.
Meanwhile, dozens of walkie talkies exploded in Lebanon on Wednesday, leaving at least one person dead and more than 100 injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, which said the affected devices belonged to Hamas members.
The incidents risk further escalating tensions in the Middle East already heightened over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
CNN has learned Tuesday’s explosions were the result of a joint operation between Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, and the Israeli military.
While the Israeli military has said it will not comment on the explosions, both Lebanon and Hezbollah have blamed it for the attack. Iran also blamed what it referred to as “Israeli terrorism.”
Speculation has mounted over how low-tech wireless communication devices could have been exploited. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Israel hid explosives inside a batch of pagers ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo and destined for Hezbollah. A switch was embedded to detonate them remotely, it added.
Gold Apollo’s founder and chairperson told reporters Wednesday that the pagers used in the attack were made by a European distributor. Hsu Ching-Kuang said his firm had signed a contract with the distributor to use the Gold Apollo brand.
Videos circulating on social media and news agencies appear to show powerful explosions in locations across Lebanon. In one CCTV video, a man is seen picking out fruit in a supermarket when an explosion tears his bag to shreds. Bystanders run after hearing the blast, while the man drops to the ground clutching his lower abdomen.
After several seconds, he can be heard groaning in pain. Other social media videos showed large numbers of injured people, including at least one child. Those wounded were covered in blood, many with facial and hand injuries.
“This criminal and treacherous enemy will definitely receive a fair punishment for this sinful assault, both in ways that are expected and unexpected,” Hezbollah said Tuesday evening.
It later said that its operations against Israel would continue and vowed “hard atonement awaiting the criminal enemy for the massacre it committed Tuesday.”
The militant group had earlier confirmed on its Telegram channel that “workers” in various Hezbollah institutions were affected by the explosions, with a “large number” of people injured.
Hezbollah has long touted secrecy as a cornerstone of its military strategy, forgoing high-tech devices to avoid infiltration from Israeli and US spyware.
Unlike other non-state actors in the Middle East, Hezbollah units are believed to communicate through an internal communications network. This is considered one of the key building blocks of the powerful group that has long been accused of operating as a state-within-a-state.
Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those wounded in Beirut Tuesday, along with two embassy employees, according to Iranian state media. Amani has a superficial injury and is under observation in the hospital, state media IRNA reported, citing his wife.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati slammed Tuesday’s attack as “a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards” in a cabinet meeting Tuesday, according to the state-run NNA news outlet.
The Israeli military, which has engaged in tit-for-tat strikes with Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza last October, said in a statement following the pager explosions that it had no change in its advice to Israeli civilians. “The public are asked to remain alert and vigilant, and any change in policy will be updated immediately,” it said in a statement.
Hussein Malla/AP
A Car in Which a Pager Exploded.
Click this link → Car Explosion Caught on Video
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Explosives placed in pagers The wave of explosions affected several areas in Lebanon, particularly the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces.
NNA reported that “hacked” pager devices exploded in the towns of Ali Al-Nahri and Riyaq in the central Beqaa valley, resulting in a significant number of injuries. The locations are Hezbollah strongholds.
Israel placed explosive material in a batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon and destined for Hezbollah, The New York Times reported, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation.
The explosives were planted next to the battery in each pager, and a switch embedded to detonate them remotely, according to The New York Times.
CNN previously reported that the pagers that exploded had been purchased by Hezbollah in recent months, according to a Lebanese security source. The devices detonated simultaneously after receiving a message on Tuesday afternoon.
Multiple photos from Lebanon on social media appear to show damaged Gold Apollo pagers. CNN cannot geolocate the images from social media, but has verified they were published on Tuesday, the same day as the explosions. At least one pager shown in the images was a Gold Apollo AR924 model.
Eyewitnesses described the carnage in Beirut following the blasts.
“We were surprised that there were a lot of people … there was blood on the roads and people were being transported in ambulances to the hospital. But we did not know what was happening,” said one witness, who did not want to be named for safety reasons.
The witness told CNN he went to a hospital to visit a friend who had been carrying one of the pagers when it exploded.
“This device was not only in the hands of people who belong to [Hezbollah], but in the hands of all people. There were people working in the security field who were using that device and they were also hurt,” he said.
David Kennedy, a former US National Security Agency intelligence analyst, told CNN the explosions seen in videos shared online appear to be “too large for this to be a remote and direct hack that would overload the pager and cause a lithium battery explosion.”
“It’s more likely that Israel had human operative in Hezbollah… The pagers would have been implanted with explosives and likely only to detonate when a certain message was received,” he said.
“The complexity needed to pull this off is incredible. It would have required many different intelligence components and execution. Human intelligence (HUMINT) would be the main method used to pull this off, along with intercepting the supply chain in order to make modifications to the pagers.”
Kim Ghattas, a Lebanese journalist and contributing writer to The Atlantic magazine, told CNN that Hezbollah had recently “gone low tech” in an attempt to prevent more of its operatives from being assassinated.
In a February speech, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah called on his fighters to discard their mobile phones, saying, “shut it off, bury it, put it in an iron chest and lock it up.”
Pagers made by European Distributor
More details emerged Wednesday of how Israeli intelligence may possibly have engineered the unprecedented attack.
Hsu, the founder of pager manufacturer Gold Apollo, said its European distributor established a relationship with the Taiwanese firm about three years ago.
At first, the European company only imported Gold Apollo’s pager and communication products, he said. Later, the company told Gold Apollo they wished to make their own pager and asked for the right to use the Taiwanese firm’s brand, he said. Hsu said Gold Apollo had encountered at least one anomaly in its dealings with the distributor, citing a wire transfer that took a long time to clear.
In a statement, Gold Apollo said the company that produces and sells the AR924 pager model is Hungary-based BAC Consulting KFT.
Taiwan has no record of Gold Apollo pagers being shipped to Lebanon or the Middle East, a senior Taiwanese security official told CNN on Wednesday. Gold Apollo shipped about 260,000 pagers from Taiwan from January 2022 to August 2024, mostly to the United States and Australia, the official said.
Lebanese officials have urged citizens with pagers to discard them, warned hospitals to be on “high alert,” and asked health workers to urgently report to work to assist with the “large number of injured people.”
The explosions come after Israel’s security cabinet voted Monday to add another war objective to its ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah ensuring the safe return of residents from communities along its border with Lebanon to their homes.
“Israel will continue to act to implement this objective,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Monday.
NNA reported that “hacked” pager devices exploded in the towns of Ali Al-Nahri and Riyaq in the central Beqaa valley, resulting in a significant number of injuries. The locations are Hezbollah strongholds.
Israel placed explosive material in a batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon and destined for Hezbollah, The New York Times reported, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation.
The explosives were planted next to the battery in each pager, and a switch embedded to detonate them remotely, according to The New York Times.
CNN previously reported that the pagers that exploded had been purchased by Hezbollah in recent months, according to a Lebanese security source. The devices detonated simultaneously after receiving a message on Tuesday afternoon.
Multiple photos from Lebanon on social media appear to show damaged Gold Apollo pagers. CNN cannot geolocate the images from social media but has verified they were published on Tuesday, the same day as the explosions. At least one pager shown in the images was a Gold Apollo AR924 model.
Eyewitnesses described the carnage in Beirut following the blasts.
“We were surprised that there were a lot of people … there was blood on the roads and people were being transported in ambulances to the hospital. But we did not know what was happening,” said one witness, who did not want to be named for safety reasons.
The witness told CNN he went to a hospital to visit a friend who had been carrying one of the pagers when it exploded.
“This device was not only in the hands of people who belong to [Hezbollah], but in the hands of all people. There were people working in the security field who were using that device and they were also hurt,” he said.
David Kennedy, a former US National Security Agency intelligence analyst, told CNN the explosions seen in videos shared online appear to be “too large for this to be a remote and direct hack that would overload the pager and cause a lithium battery explosion.”
“It’s more likely that Israel had human operatives…in Hezbollah… The pagers would have been implanted with explosives and likely only to detonate when a certain message was received,” he said.
“The complexity needed to pull this off is incredible. It would have required many different intelligence components and execution. Human intelligence (HUMINT) would be the main method used to pull this off, along with intercepting the supply chain in order to make modifications to the pagers.”
Kim Ghattas, a Lebanese journalist and contributing writer to The Atlantic magazine, told CNN that Hezbollah had recently “gone low tech” in an attempt to prevent more of its operatives from being assassinated.
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After nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel, tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
The US was “not involved” in the series of pager explosions in Lebanon and was “not aware” of any attack in advance, according to a State Department spokesperson.
Following the attacks, European airlines Air France and Lufthansa suspended flights to Tel Aviv at least through Thursday “due to the security situation locally.”
Air France said it is also suspending flights to Beirut through Thursday, amid fears of escalation in the region.
This story has been updated with additional developments
CNN’s Eric Cheung, Wayne Chang, Sarah El
Sirgany, Pauline Lockwood and Hamdi Alkhshali
contributed reporting.
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Updated September 18, 2024 at 1:00 PM
Home Solar Systems Explode in Beirut, Lebanon Following Walkie-Talkie and Pager Blasts
Lebanon officials are now reporting that multiple home solar energy systems have reportedly exploded in various neighborhoods across Beirut.
This attack follows closely on the heels of Tuesday’s pager blasts, which claimed the lives of 12 and left nearly 4,000 wounded in what is rapidly becoming an unparalleled security nightmare for the terrorist organization.
On Wednesday, walkie-talkies exploded simultaneously at various Hezbollah-controlled locations across the country.
Now, reports emerged from Lebanon’s Official News Agency detailing how home solar systems—often touted as the solution to climate change—were also going up in flames.
Al Jazeera reported:
“Several blasts took place simultaneously, Hashem said, similar to what happened on Tuesday. “But this time, it was mostly walkie-talkies or radios [that exploded],” he said, adding that reports suggested that solar devices and some batteries in cars also exploded. Lebanon’s official news agency reported that home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut.”
Watch:
Home Solar Systems Explode After Pager Blasts
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UPDATE:
Lebanon Israel Exploding Pagers
A partly damaged car after what is believed to be the result of a walkie-talkie exploding inside it, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Wednesday,
Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT (AP) — Walkie-talkies and solar equipment exploded in Beirut and multiple parts of Lebanon on Wednesday in an apparent second wave of attacks targeting electronic devices a day after hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah blew up, state media and Hezbollah officials said.
At least nine people were killed and more than 300 people wounded in the second wave, the Health Ministry said.
The attacks, which were widely believed to be carried out by Israel targeting Hezbollah, have hiked fears that the two sides; simmering conflict could escalate into all-out war.
Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.”
He made no mention of the explosions of electronic devices but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying “the results are very impressive.”
In Wednesday's attacks, several blasts were heard at a funeral in Beirut for three Hezbollah members and a child killed by exploding pagers the day before, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.
An AP photographer in the southern coastal city of Sidon saw a car and a mobile phone shop damaged after devices exploded inside of them. A girl was hurt in the south when a solar energy system blew up, the state news agency reported.
The new blasts hit a country still roiling with confusion and anger after Tuesday’s pager bombings, which appeared to be a complex Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah members that caused civilian casualties, too.
Tuesday’s bombings killed at least 12 people, including two children, and wounded some 2,800 others.
The second wave also deepens concern over the potentially indiscriminate casualties caused in the attacks, in which hundreds of blasts went off wherever the holder of the pager happened to be — in homes, cars, at grocery stores and in cafes, often with family or bystanders nearby.
While the pagers were used by Hezbollah members, there was no guarantee who was holding the device at the time of the blast. Also, many of the casualties were not Hezbollah fighters, but members of the group’s extensive civilian operations mainly serving Lebanon’s Shiite community.
At least two health workers were among those killed Tuesday. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, charity workers, teachers and office administrators work for Hezbollah-linked organizations, and an unknown number had pagers.
The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, called for an independent investigation into the mass explosions.
“The fear and terror unleashed is profound,” he said in a statement, urging world
leaders to step up “in defense of the rights of all people to live in peace and security.”
Iran-backed Hezbollah — Lebanon's strongest armed force — and Israel’s military have exchanged fire almost daily since Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led assault in southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza. Since then, hundreds have been killed in strikes in Lebanon and dozens in Israel, while tens of thousands on each side of the border have been displaced.
Hezbollah said its strikes are in support of its ally, Hamas. Israeli leaders have issued a series of warnings in recent weeks that they might increase operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying they must put a stop to the exchanges to allow people to return to homes near the border. Israel began moving more troops to its border with Lebanon on Wednesday as a precautionary measure, according to an official with knowledge of the movements who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
In his comments, Gallant said that after months of fighting Hamas in Gaza, “the center of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces.”
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu huddled with top security officials at Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, the country’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said plans have been drawn up for additional action against Hezbollah.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday the U.S. is still assessing how the attack could affect efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas.
New details on the pager bombings began to emerge. An American official said Israel briefed the United States after the attack, in which small amounts of explosive had been hidden in the devices. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.
The AR-924 pagers used in Tuesday's attack were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, which is based in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, according to a statement released by Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese firm that authorized the use of its brand on the pagers.
Gold Apollo's chair, Hsu Ching-Kuang, told journalists Wednesday the firm has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years. But the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement.
At the headquarters of a building in a residential neighborhood of Budapest, the names of multiple companies, including BAC Consulting, are posted on pieces of paper on a window.
A woman who emerged from the building and declined to give her name said the site provides headquarter addresses to various companies. BAC’s parent company is registered to Cristiana Rosaria Bársony-Arcidiacono, who describes herself on her LinkedIn page as a strategic advisor and business developer.
The Associated Press has attempted to reach Bársony-Arcidiacono via the LinkedIn page and has been unable to establish a connection between her or BAC and the exploding pagers.
The attack in Lebanon started Tuesday afternoon, when pagers in their owners hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.
It appeared that most of those hit were members or linked to members if Hezbollah — whether fighters or civilians — but it was not immediately clear if people with no ties to Hezbollah were also hit.
The Health Ministry said health care workers and two children were among those killed. In the village of Nadi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley, dozens gathered to mourn the death of one of the children, 9-year-old Fatima Abdullah.
Her mother, wearing black and donning a yellow Hezbollah scarf, wept alongside other women and children as they gathered around the little girl’s coffin before her burial.
Hezbollah said in a statement Wednesday morning that it would continue its normal strikes against Israel as part of what it describes as a support front for its ally, Hamas, and Palestinians in Gaza.
“This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday,” it said. “This is another reckoning that will come, God willing.”___
This story has been updated to correct the age of one of the children killed. She was 9, not 8.
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CABLE NEWS NETWORK: CHARBEL MALLO, TAMARA QIBLAWI, JEREMY DIAMOND, LAUREN KENT, ROB PICHETA AND CHRISTIAN EDWARDS AND HELEN REGAN reported for CNN
SPIKE reported from Budapest and Lai from Taipei, Taiwan. Associated Press journalists Abby Sewell and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut; Simina Mistreanu
in Taipei; Melanie Lidman and Josef Federman in Jerusalem; Zeke Miller in Washington; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
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This article was compiled and edited by Robert D. Morningstar, Publisher/Editor of TMR.
With Many Thanks to Eric Galati for his contribution to the article.
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The company in Hungary that made them is more responsible than Israel.