The pagers that blew up in a highly coordinated – and deadly – attack against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon Tuesday came from Budapest and were rigged with as little as one to two ounces of highly explosive material, according to a report.
The devices all exploded simultaneously Tuesday afternoon after receiving a message that triggered the detonation, killing at least nine people — including an 8-year-old girl — and wounding nearly 3,000 more. Among those injured was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that the US has designated a terrorist organization, ordered more than 3,000 of the latest models from Gold Apollo in Taiwan — most of them being the company’s AP924 model, American and other officials briefed on the operation told The New York Times.
Gold Apollo said Wednesday it authorized its brand on the pagers, but claimed that a company in Hungary manufactured them.
The shipment, however, was allegedly intercepted by Israeli spy agency Mossad five months ago and rigged with pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a highly explosive material, sources told Sky News Arabia, according to a translation from Israeli media.
They were implanted with as little as one to two ounces of the explosive, allegedly placed next to each battery along with a switch that could be triggered remotely to cause detonation, the officials said, according to the Times.
The pagers all received a message around 3:30 p.m. local time that appeared as though it was being sent from Hezbollah’s leadership, the officials said.
The message caused the batteries’ temperatures to overheat, which triggered the switch and activated the explosives.
The pagers were also programmed to beep for several seconds before blowing up, according to the officials.
Eight of the people killed by the explosions appeared to be part of the terror group, the Associated Press reported.
Lebanon’s health minister, Firas Abiad, told Qatar’s Al Jazeera network an 8-year-old girl was also killed while around 2,750 were wounded – 200 of them in critical condition.
A US official told the AP that Israel briefed the US on the high-profile operation after it happened, though the Israeli military has been mum on the detonations and has not confirmed it carried out the complex attack.
Still, Hezbollah has placed the blame on Israel and vowed revenge.
Israel’s military and Hezbollah have been fighting since the start of the bloody conflict in Gaza sparked by the Oct. 7 terror attack on the Jewish state carried out by Hamas.
