HEZBOLLAH terrorists and the Iranian ambassador are among thousands injured after “brand new” pagers exploded across Lebanon, killing at least nine people.
The booby-trapped devices blew up simultaneously across the
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At about 3:30pm local time, the pagers started heating up and then exploding in people’s hands or pockets – leaving blood-splattered scenes.
Lebanon’s Information Minister pinned the shock James Bond-style sabotage on “Israeli aggression”.
Israel’s Mossad spy agency allegedly planted a small amount of explosives inside thousands of pagers ordered by Hezbollah months earlier, a Lebanese security source and a second source told Reuters.
The pagers were said to be a “new brand” that the terrorists had not used before.
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Hezbollah reportedly acquired the pagers after the group’s leadership ordered members to stop using phones.
The leadership warned phones could be tracked by Israeli spies – and believed pagers were safer.
Nearly 3,000 people have so far been injured including hundreds of fighters, senior commanders in the terror group, and the Iranian ambassador in Beirut.
Hezbollah received a new shipment of pagers in the last few days with hundreds of their terror troops having the devices, the Wall Street Journal reported.
It is not yet clear what caused the pagers to blow, with some experts saying explosives were inside them and others saying malware could have caused the batteries to overheat and then erupt.
Lebanon’s health minister reported nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 were wounded with 200 of those in a serious condition.
Shocking videos circulating on social media show the wave of blasts striking across the country.
Some pagers rang before exploding – causing the fighter to put their hands on them or bring them up to their faces to check the screen.
In-store CCTV footage caught people struck down in the middle of their shopping as people fled around them.
One shows a man’s bag exploding in a grocer with other shoppers sprinting for their lives away from the man as he is knocked to the ground by the detonation.
Another shows a man paying for items at a till before he checks the pager on his hip and it explodes in his hands.
Other footage showed maimed targets lying on the ground missing hands or fingers and having large wounds on their hips and legs.
Beirut’s street turned to chaos as people fled buildings for safety and the city’s hospitals treated the bloodied survivors.
The sons of Hezbollah lawmakers Ali Ammar and Hassan Fadlallah were among the dead, a source close to the group said.
The blasts “killed nine people, including a girl”, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said in a casualty update.
The 8-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, their family said.
How Israel is suspected of tampering with Hezbollah terrorists’ pagers & turning them into ‘remote bombs’
NO-ONE has claimed responsibility for the explosions – but Lebanese officials have accused Israel, which is yet to comment
Hezbollah said it was carrying out a “security and scientific investigation” into the causes of the blasts.
Diplomatic and security sources speculated that the explosions could have been caused by the devices’ batteries detonating, possibly through overheating.
Experts were mystified by the explosions but several said they doubted the battery alone would have been enough to cause the blasts.
Newcastle University’s Paul Christensen said: “What we’re talking about is a relatively small battery bursting into flames.
“We’re not talking of a fatal explosion here. I’d need to know more about the energy density of the batteries.
“But my intuition is telling me that it’s highly unlikely.”
Lebanese digital rights organisation SMEX said Israel could have exploited a weakness in the device to cause it to explode.
It said the pagers could also have been intercepted before reaching Hezbollah and either tampered with electronically or implanted with an explosive device.
Israeli intelligence forces have previously placed explosives in personal phones to target enemies, according to prior reporting in the book Rise and Kill First.
Hackers have also demonstrated the ability to inject malicious code into personal devices, causing them to overheat and explode in some instances.
Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute said: “This was more than lithium batteries being forced into override.
“A small plastic explosive was almost certainly concealed alongside the battery, for remote detonation via a call or page.”
Israel’s spy agency “Mossad infiltrated the supply chain”, Lister said.
A source close to Hezbollah said”the pagers that exploded concern a shipment recently imported by Hezbollah of 1,000 devices”.
The insider said the pagers appeared to have been “sabotaged at source”.
One security expert told Sky News: “The general view I am hearing is that this was an impressive attack made possible by Hezbollah moving away from mobile phones.
“They were not being suitably sceptical about their alternative devices or supply chain.
“It looks likely that the pagers they Hezbollah purchased may have been compromised and turned into remote bombs.
“If they all went off on a similar timescale then they must have been triggered remotely.
“It seems too coordinated and powerful an explosion to just be malfunction.”
Reuters said ambulances were now rushing through the capital as “widespread panic” has hit the city.
One Hezbollah official, speaking on anonymity, told the agency the pager explosions was the “biggest security breach” of the war so far.
Hezbollah fighters had begun using pagers as a low-tech means to try and avoid Israeli tracking of their locations, sources said.
Security sources said the pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months.
Another official said new pagers that Hezbollah members were carrying had lithium batteries – they can explode when overheated.
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Local Lebanese media are reporting the country’s health ministry has asked the public to distance themselves from wireless communication devices.
Security expert Chris Phillips said the attack clearly showed that the Israeli Defence Force had people on the inside of Hezbollah.
The explosions came hours after Israel said it had foiled a Hezbollah plot to kill a former senior Israeli security official using a planted explosive device that could be remotely detonated.
Experts said the pager explosions pointed to a sophisticated, long-planned operation.
The op was possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the pagers with explosives before they were imported to Lebanon.
Whatever the means, it targeted an extraordinary number of people across Syria and Lebanon.
Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert, said videos of the blasts suggested a small explosive charge as small as a pencil eraser had been placed into the devices.
They would have had to have been rigged prior to delivery in an apparent Mossad plot, Moorhouse said.
Hundreds of small explosions happened all at once, wherever the pager carrier happened to be that left some maimed.
The US State Department said it is probing the explosions – adding that America had nothing to do with them.
The former head of UK Counter Terrorism said the attack was “very clever” and showed how widespread the IDF’s reach and threat to Hezbollah was.
He said: “The IDF have got into the shipment [of pagers] somehow. It’s quite a difficult job to load them up with explosives.
“It’s another example of how good the IDF is.”
Phillips said Hezbollah would likely be using pagers because they wouldn’t trust cellphones.
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He said if the Iranian ambassador was holding one that could show that key agents and associates of Hezbollah were trusted with them.
“What they’re [the IDF] saying to Hezbollah is ‘we know who you are and now you have a big hole in your leg so we know even more who you are’.
“It is a sign to say: ‘we are inside you and you must be well behaved’.”
Yossi Oren of the Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering at Israel’s Ben Gurion University told The Sun: “It is possible that these devices were all detonated together with the push of a button which sent out a signal.
“Software could have been used designed to make the hardware being carried operate outside its safe parameters, causing devices to explode.
“Pagers have batteries and capacitors which could have been made unstable.
“But the serious injuries caused suggests Hezbollah’s supply chain may have been compromised and that the devices could have contained explosives.
“Hezbollah have become increasingly unpopular and Israeli agents could have had help on the ground – or it could be the work of enemies from within Lebanon.
“Israel’s military chiefs will be very happy with being able to cause chaos and confusion on such a large scale – it’s hard to recall anything like this ever happening before.”
Injuries have also been reported amongst the terror group’s soldiers in neighbouring Syria.
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the groups members not to carry cellphones, saying that they could be used by Israel to track their movements and to carry out targeted strikes.
Israel or the IDF are yet to comment on the attack.
Israel widens war to brink of clash with Hezbollah
By Nick Parker, Foreign Editor
The apparent hack attack came after Israel dramatically expanded its war plan Tuesday bringing its forces to the brink of a bloody all-out clash with Hezbollah.
Northern Israel has been evacuated for months after Hezbollah began firing daily rocket barrages across Israel’s northern border to support its Hamas terror comrades.
But Israeli leaders Tuesday added a new goal to its list of three primary post October 7 war aims: “The safe return of the residents of the north to their homes”.
And defence chief Yoav Gallant warned the new objective could only be achieved by “military” action Tuesday.
The announcement paves the way for the first full scale invasion of southern Lebanon since 2006 in a drive to push back the terror group to allow Israelis to return home.
But the risky move raises the spectre of Hezbollah backers Iran being drawn into a devastating regional conflict.
Gallant has already revealed Israel Defence Forces plans to switch their focus from Hamas in Gaza to the northern front.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added “it will not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north”.
Since the day after last year’s October 7 attacks in which Hamas claimed 1,200 lives, Hezbollah has supported is Islamist ally with drone, rocket and guided missile attacks.
The blitz has killed 26 civilians and 20 soldiers and forced 80,000 Israelis to flee south to escape attacks which damaged nearly 1,000 homes within six miles of the border.
IDF air power alone has been unable to stop the life-threatening barrages and analysts now believe a ground invasion of southern Lebanon could be imminent.
One plan being considered by Israeli war chiefs is a move to occupy a buffer zone inside southern Lebanon.
But Iran – which has funded and stocked Hezbollah’s military machine for years – looks certain to respond with its own strikeback if the ground assault is launched.
The wave of explosions came after three people died in Lebanon in an Israeli air strike said to have targeted Hezbollah “terrorists”.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on the border village of Blida killed three people and wounded two without specifying if they were fighters or civilians.
Hezbollah and Hamas are both backed by Iran and proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.
Since October, Israel has killed at least 589 people in Lebanon – the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters – according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
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