On the 17th of September 2024, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad carried out one of its most effective anti-terrorist operations against the Islamic terrorist outfit Hezbollah in Lebanon. The sophisticated attack left thousands of Hezbollah terrorists injured and over 30 dead.
It was reported how Mossad carried out a long-term operation which included setting up a legitimate company in Hungary to supply communication devices to Hezbollah. A Washington Post report says that Israel carefully planted booby-traps in the devices for almost ten years, using them to eavesdrop, while retaining the capacity to remotely detonate these walkie-talkies.
Mossad launched the first step of the plot against Hezbollah in 2015 when the devices were secretly brought into Lebanon.
Citing officials, The Post reported: “For nine years, the Israelis contented themselves with eavesdropping on Hezbollah, while reserving the option to turn the walkie-talkies into bombs in a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a glitzy new product: a small pager equipped with a powerful explosive.”
The plan for the pager explosive operation originated in 2022, over a year before Hamas’s brutal onslaught against Israeli civilians on 7th October 2023. The first sales pitches for Apollo AR924 pagers to Hezbollah were also received two years ago.
Interestingly, the moderately bulky pagers and huge batteries, which could provide long operative days, made it easier for Israeli experts to set the explosives. One of the most deadly features of these pagers was a two-step decryption process that required its user’s hands.
This ensured most users [Hezbollah terrorists] would be holding the pager with both hands when Mossad triggered the devices remotely on the 17th of September. The WaPo report says that the user had to press two buttons to read the message. An official said that since both the hands of terrorists would be wounded in the page explosion, they would be rendered “incapable to fight”. Probably, Mossad wanted Hezbollah terrorists dead or almost dead [read “useless”].
Mossad used a Taiwanese company to penetrate Hezbollah’s communication system and cause the ultimate ‘explosion’
Notably, Mossad has long been attempting to break into Hezbollah using electronic monitoring and human informants and it found that one of the Iran-backed terror group’s top priorities was establishing a surveillance-free communication system among terrorists that Israel could not trace or hack. The Mossad investigated this, and Apollo pagers were offered to the terrorist organisation as a gadget with no risk of surveillance.
The WaPo report suggests that the choice of a Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo was also pertinent, as Hezbollah leaders were cautious about gadgets from countries with ties to Israel. Hezbollah leadership did not suspect a foul play, as Taiwanese Apollo pagers, a well-known trademark and product line with global distribution, had no evident links to Israeli or Jewish interests.
Last year, the sales pitch was made by a female marketing executive trusted by Hezbollah and linked to Apollo, she was a former Middle East sales agent for the Taiwanese firm, as well as an Apollo pager licensee through her company.
“She was the one in touch with Hezbollah, and explained to them why the bigger pager with the larger battery was better than the original model,” said an Israeli official briefed on details of the operation. One of the main selling points about the AR924 was that it was “possible to charge with a cable. And the batteries were longer lasting,” an official told WaPo.
Notably, the marketing official was unaware of Israel’s designs and was clueless that the pagers were physically built in Israel under Mossad’s supervision.
It is pertinent to note that Taiwanese company Gold Apollo has denied making the pagers, saying that they were made by Hungarian company BAC Consulting under licence from them.
As reported earlier, BAC Consulting headquartered in Budapest is nothing but a front established by Mossad and two more such shell companies were created by the Israeli intelligence agency. An NYT report said that BAC Consulting is only an intermediary and has no operative site in Hungary. BAC CEO Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono also said that the company did not make the pagers and that she was just a link in the supply chain. While BAC may have been unaware of Mossad’s involvement, it somehow received the rigged pagers from Mossad and supplied them to Lebanon as per order.
Japanese walkie-talkies made over 10 years ago were also used in explosion
While Hezbollah was still to fathom what happened as the pager explosion created chaos, a day after the pager explosion, walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded, killing 25 people and injuring over 1000. In addition, the two-way radios were rigged with explosives and were remotely detonated. Among these walkie-talkies, some were made by Japanese radio equipment maker Icom.
The interesting part here is that Icom confirmed that they discontinued the manufacturing of the model used in the attack a decade ago. The company exported the IC-V82 two-way radio to the Middle East and other regions till October 2014. This adds substance to the information emerging that Icom may have sold the devices in 2014 and the same were acquired by Mossad, altered later on, only to be eventually bought by Hezbollah.
Why Hezbollah was using old-fashioned tech?
Notably, the demand for pagers and walkie-talkies arose after the killings of Wissam al-Tawil, Taleb Abdallah, and Mohammed Nasser, commanders in charge of Hezbollah’s operations in the south, as well as Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’ deputy leader in Beirut. Hezbollah suspected that Israel is tracking their cell phones. The terror group used its affiliated Al-Nour radio to caution its terrorists not to heed cold calls from callers claiming to be local officials as they could be Israeli agents. Since then, the cell phone ban is strictly implemented and any Hezbollah terrorist found in possession of a cell phone is kicked out of the terror group. Besides, Hezbollah is using small, homemade, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to gather information about Israeli targets and attack its surveillance systems.
Netanyahu approved the pager and walkie-talkie explosion after calculating the potential risks
The Israeli security officials and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that carrying out such a massive attack on Hezbollah might escalate tensions with Iran and result in a full-fledged war with Hezbollah, particularly at a time when the Israeli forces are fighting against Hamas. “But others, chiefly Mossad, saw an opportunity to disrupt the status quo with “something more intense”,” the WaPo report says adding that the US, which has been a major ally of Israel was not informed about the planned pager and walkie-talkie explosion attack.
“Ultimately, Netanyahu approved triggering the devices while they could inflict maximum damage. Over the following week, Mossad began preparations for detonating both the pagers and walkie-talkies already in circulation,” WaPo reported.
