“Israel hid small plastic explosives next to Hezbollah’s pager batteries” and left nine behind…

September 18, 2024, 08:46 am | Updated: September 18, 2024, 08:49 am

Israel is being blamed for a targeted attack on Hezbollah members in which thousands of pagers were detonated with tiny amounts of explosives, killing at least nine people and injuring thousands more.

Almost 3,000 people are said to have been injured in the coordinated long-distance attack, 200 of whom are still in critical condition.

Israel has not commented on the explosions, but experts say the pagers, which were imported into Lebanon earlier this year, must have been tampered with as part of a plot that was planned over months.

The New York Times reported that Hezbollah's pagers were compromised in a joint operation by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and the Israeli army.

Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute said: “This was more than just the forced activation of lithium batteries. There was almost certainly a small plastic explosive hidden next to the battery that could be detonated remotely by phone or radio call. Mossad has infiltrated the supply chain.”

Paul Christensen, a lithium-ion battery safety expert at Newcastle University, said the damage caused by the pager explosions was not consistent with known cases of such batteries failing in the past. “We're talking about a relatively small battery bursting into flames. We're not talking about a fatal explosion. I would need to know more about the energy density of the batteries, but my intuition tells me that's highly unlikely,” he said.

Israel is said to have manipulated the devices “at the production level.”

Hezbollah has vowed retaliation after a militant group's pagers exploded across Lebanon, killing nine people and injuring nearly thousands.

Israel is now being blamed for the deadly attack. Reports say the devices, which belonged to Hezbollah members, were “manufacturing tampering.”

A senior security source in Lebanon has now told Reuters that the Israeli secret service Mossad was responsible for the attack by placing a small amount of explosives in thousands of pagers during production.

The Israeli military has not yet commented.

Several sources told Reuters that the militant group had ordered 5,000 “European-made” pagers from Taiwanese company Gold Apollo under a new license.

A second security source told the news organization that the new pagers contained up to three grams of explosives that had gone “undetected” by Hezbollah for months.

This happened in the wake of reports, according to the Taiwanese company, that the devices were manufactured in Europe.

It has since been revealed that the items arrived in Lebanon in the spring. The same source claimed that the devices had been modified “at the production level” by Israeli spies.

In the hours following the attack, harrowing footage emerged showing Hezbollah members' pagers exploding in their pockets over a 30-minute period on Tuesday.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the explosions killed a ten-year-old girl and seriously injured 200 people.

“About 2,750 people were injured … more than 200 of them seriously,” he said on Tuesday afternoon.

A Hezbollah spokesman called it the “largest security breach to date.”

A Hezbollah official who asked not to be identified told The Associated Press that the new brand of portable pagers used by the group first heated up and then exploded.

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Footage shared on social media showed pagers exploding in people's pockets and other images showed injured victims of the explosions.

The Iranian ambassador is said to have also been injured in the attack.

Hezbollah claimed the pagers were blown up by Israel, with which it has been locked in a war of words for months.

The UN described the alleged attack as “regrettable”.

A statement said: “The Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, deplores today's attack across Lebanon, which has left thousands injured, many seriously, and confirmed at least nine people dead, including children.”

“In accordance with international humanitarian law, it reminds all actors concerned that civilians are not targets of attack and must be protected at all times. Even a single civilian casualty is one too many.”

“Today's developments mark an extremely worrying escalation in an already unacceptably unstable context. While the effects of the attack are still unfolding, Hennis-Plasschaert calls on all actors concerned to refrain from further actions or bellicose rhetoric, as this could trigger a wider conflagration that no one can afford.”

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An official said the new pagers carried by Hezbollah members contained lithium batteries that exploded.

Among those killed was the son of a member of the Hezbollah bloc in the Lebanese parliament.

The sons of two other senior officials were injured, a Hezbollah official said.

Prominent Hezbollah politician Ali Ammar spoke to AP after his son Mahdi was killed.

“This is a new Israeli aggression against Lebanon,” Ammar said. “The resistance will retaliate in an appropriate manner at the right time.”

Photos and videos from Beirut's southern suburbs circulated on social networks and local media showing people lying on the sidewalk with wounds on their hands or near their pockets.

A statement by the Palestinian militant group Hamas said: “We appreciate the struggle and sacrifices of our brothers in Hezbollah and their insistence on continuing to support and assist our Palestinian people in Gaza, and we reiterate our full solidarity with the Lebanese people and our brothers in Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had previously warned members of the group not to carry mobile phones because Israel could use them to track their movements and carry out targeted attacks.

The United States has denied any involvement in the incident.

“I can tell you that the United States had no involvement in this,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

“The United States was not aware of this incident beforehand. And now we are gathering information.”

The incident occurred at a time of heightened tensions between Lebanon and Israel.

Against the backdrop of the war between Israel and Hezbollah ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip, there have been almost daily clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces for more than eleven months.

The clashes left hundreds dead in Lebanon and dozens in Israel, and tens of thousands displaced on both sides of the border.

Hezbollah is one of the most heavily armed non-state groups in the world and is part of the government with dozens of members in the Lebanese parliament.

Many, including some Western governments, consider it a terrorist organization and it has played a significant role in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.