Hezbollah in Lebanon continued to distribute new Gold Apollo branded pagers to its members just hours before a series of explosions occurred this week, according to two security sources. This suggests that the group maintained a level of confidence in the safety of the devices, despite an ongoing effort to sweep for electronic threats.
One source reported that a member of the Iranian-backed militia received a new pager on Monday, which exploded the following day while still in its packaging. Additionally, a pager provided to a senior member just days prior injured a subordinate when it detonated, as noted by the second source.
In what appeared to be a coordinated attack, the Gold Apollo devices exploded on Tuesday in Hezbollah’s strongholds, including southern Lebanon, the suburbs of Beirut, and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
The following day, numerous Hezbollah walkie-talkies also detonated. These successive attacks resulted in the deaths of 37 individuals, including at least two children, and left over 3,000 others injured.
Lebanon and Hezbollah have accused Israel of orchestrating the attacks. A Western security source informed Reuters this week that Israel’s covert military intelligence Unit 8200 played a role in the planning. In response to the situation, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on Lebanon but has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
According to another Lebanese source familiar with the device’s components, the batteries of the walkie-talkies contained a highly explosive substance known as PETN. Reports indicate that up to three grams of explosives concealed within the pagers had remained undetected by Hezbollah for several months.
One security source noted the difficulty in detecting the explosives using any device or scanner, although the specific types of scanners used by Hezbollah to examine the pagers were not disclosed.
Following their delivery to Lebanon in 2022, Hezbollah scrutinized the pagers, including transporting them through airports to avoid triggering security alarms, as confirmed by two additional sources who spoke to Reuters. In total, six sources provided insights into the details surrounding the explosive devices for this report.
The sources did not disclose the names of the airports where the tests were carried out. Instead of focusing on a specific concern regarding the pagers, the inspections were part of a standard “sweep” of equipment, including communication devices, aimed at detecting any signs of explosives or surveillance tools, according to one security source.
The recent attacks and the distribution of these devices, despite the routine inspections for security breaches, have undermined Hezbollah’s standing as the most powerful faction within Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ coalition of anti-Israel forces in the Middle East.
In a televised address on Thursday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah described the attacks as “unprecedented in the history” of the organization. Hezbollah’s media office and the Israeli military did not promptly respond to inquiries regarding this matter.
Gold Apollo, based in Taiwan, stated that it did not produce the devices involved in the attack, clarifying that they were manufactured by a European company authorized to use its brand.
Earlier this year, a shipment of 5,000 pagers was brought into Lebanon. Previous reports indicated that Hezbollah resorted to using pagers to avoid Israeli monitoring of its mobile communications, particularly following the targeted killings of senior commanders in airstrikes over the past year.
The longstanding conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has escalated in the past year, coinciding with the Gaza war, raising concerns about the potential for a broader regional conflict.
Following the detonation of the pagers on Tuesday, Hezbollah expressed concerns that additional devices may have been compromised, according to two security sources and an intelligence source who spoke to Reuters. In response, the organization escalated its review of communication systems, conducting thorough inspections of all devices. They also initiated an investigation into the supply chains responsible for bringing in the pagers, as reported by the two security sources. However, the assessment was still ongoing by Wednesday afternoon when the hand-held radios exploded. Hezbollah suspects that Israel chose to detonate the group’s hand-held radios out of fear that Hezbollah would soon discover the walkie-talkies were also rigged with explosives.
The explosions from the walkie-talkies resulted in 25 fatalities and at least 650 injuries, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, marking a significantly higher death toll compared to the previous day’s pager blasts, which resulted in 12 deaths and nearly 3,000 injuries.
This increase in casualties is attributed to the higher explosive payload of the walkie-talkies, as noted by one security source and the intelligence source. The investigation into the specifics of how and when the devices were equipped with explosives is still underway, as confirmed by three sources.
Nasrallah echoed this sentiment in a speech on Thursday. One security source mentioned that Hezbollah had previously thwarted Israeli operations aimed at devices imported by the group, ranging from private landline telephones to ventilation systems in their offices, including suspected breaches over the past year. “We identified several electronic vulnerabilities, but not the pagers,” the source stated. “They outsmarted us; credit to the enemy.”
