Lebanese Hezbollah distributed pagers to its members hours before they blew themselves up en masse, Reuters reported, citing two security sources from the group.
One of the Hezbollah members received a new pager the day before it exploded while the device was still in the box, one of the sources said.
Hezbollah has been checking pagers after their arrival in Lebanon since 2022, the agency reports. Checks were also carried out at airports to ensure the devices did not trigger alarms, two other sources told Reuters.
The checks were not carried out because the group was suspicious about the pagers – this was a normal procedure for any team, writes Reuters. Their main purpose was to detect signs of explosives or tracking mechanisms on the devices.
The sources confirmed that the pagers contained PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) explosives, weighing up to three grams each. A security source said the explosives were very difficult to detect “using any device or scanner.” He did not specify which scanners Hezbollah used to check the pagers.
On September 17, the bombing of pagers, many of which belonged to members of the Hezbollah group, took place. More than 4,000 people were injured and at least 32 killed, including children. It was only the first such attack: explosions of radios and other equipment in Lebanon on September 18 killed 25 people and injured more than 600.
As The New York Times (NYT) wrote, citing sources, Israel has created at least three front companies for the production of pagers, one of them being BAC Consulting. In fact, the devices were manufactured by Israeli intelligence agents.
Each was fitted with a 1–2 oz (28–56 g) explosive and placed next to the battery, and the pagers also had built-in switches to remotely activate the explosives upon receipt of a message similar to those typically sent by Hezbollah leaders. The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding.
Israel did not claim responsibility for the attack. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrullah On September 19, he said that the Jewish state, by carrying out the explosions of equipment in Lebanon, “crossed all red lines”; its actions amounted to a declaration of war;
