On Tuesday, Lebanon saw mass pager explosions. The devices were used for communication by Hezbollah members. At least 12 people were killed and about 3,000 were injured. Hezbollah believes Israel is behind the attack. The owner of the brand from Taiwan claims that it was not his company that manufactured the devices. The licensee is a company from Hungary.
It was a surprise that caused chaos in several parts of Lebanon. It is about the pager explosions that occurred almost simultaneously on Tuesday afternoon. – At around 3:30 p.m., many injured people started arriving at hospitals. They were injured as a result of the explosion of communication devices, pagers that they had with them – said Firass Abiad, Lebanon's health minister.
The explosions occurred in the main strongholds of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, financially supported by Iran – on the outskirts of Beirut and in southern Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley region. The injured are counted in the thousands. There are about 200 people in critical condition in hospitals. Twelve died, including – according to the Lebanese side – an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old. – Although among the injured were women and children, the vast majority were young men – informs Ben Wedeman, a CNN correspondent.
The Lebanese government condemned the incident, calling it an Israeli attack. The Mossad action must have been planned for months, and more is being revealed about it. “Ironically, there were reports in the media recently that Hezbollah had switched from cell phones to pagers to prevent Israeli intelligence from tracking people using GPS. Hezbollah itself announced this to the world, which seemed incredibly stupid. It's basically telling the enemy what technology you're using,” says Joseph Steinberg, a cybersecurity author.
The pagers ended up in the hands of the organization's members this year. A total of 5,000 of them were brought into the country. Initially, there was speculation that Israeli services had hacked the organization's new devices and caused them to overheat, which resulted in an explosion. However, Sky News Arabia reports that the Mossad used pentrite – an explosive used during World War II. The substance was secretly placed in the pagers.
– The planning of this operation itself took a long time, many people had to be involved to bring it to fruition – says Dr. Harel Menashri from the Holon Institute of Technology in Israel. – Never in the region has this type of operation been seen, where from a distance they actually succeeded in damaging 3,000 hands that could pull the trigger and fire a rocket at Israel. Such intelligence infiltration certainly shows its overwhelming capabilities – points out Sarit Zehavi from an Israeli security think tank.
More than a thousand Hezbollah members injured, their pagers explodedReuters
The trail leads to Budapest, Hungarian opposition outraged
The pagers that exploded were manufactured under license from a Taiwanese manufacturer. On Tuesday, police showed up at the company's headquarters. The company's founder is redirecting to Europe. “We have a distributor in Europe that we have been working with for three years. This company manufactured the pager using our brand, they pay us to use our logo, we have ready-made contracts that we can show you,” said Hsu Ching-Kuang, owner of the Gold Apollo brand.
The devices were actually manufactured by a licensee, a company based in Budapest. The Hungarian opposition is demanding an investigation and explanations from its government.
“We want the anti-terrorist unit to open an investigation as soon as possible, search the company and issue an international arrest warrant for its CEO. We also demand an urgent call for a meeting of the parliament's national security committee to investigate whether this simply happened in Hungary through a Mossad front company or whether the Hungarian government knew about it or even had a hand in it,” says Elod Novak, an opposition member of the Hungarian parliament.
More explosions in BeirutReuters
US “gathers information”
A reduction in tensions in the Middle East is increasingly unlikely. The United States has long warned Israel against expanding its operations into Lebanon, fearing it would draw Iran into the conflict.
– The United States did not know about this action, nor was it involved in it, we are still collecting information and facts. We want to emphasize, we are sure, that it is very important for all parties to avoid any attempts to escalate the conflict. We are trying to resolve it in Gaza, to avoid spilling over to other fronts – says Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State.
Media reports say explosions were heard again in Lebanon on Wednesday, including one during a funeral for Hezbollah fighters on the southern outskirts of Beirut. This time, they say, it may have been a walkie-talkie.
Facts about the World TVN24 BiS
Main image source: PAP/EPA/WAEL HAMZEH