It is around 3:30 in the afternoon on September 17. People in Lebanon are busy going about their daily business, shopping, getting haircuts, holding meetings.
Hundreds of pagers across the country and even outside the country’s borders ring simultaneously with a message and explode, injuring and killing their owners and bystanders.
The communications equipment was used by members of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which immediately blamed Israel for the operation, as did several international media organizations.
Israel, in keeping with its tradition of conducting operations outside its borders, neither confirmed nor denied the allegation.
But observers say the simultaneous blasts have all the hallmarks of an Israeli operation that infiltrated the supply chain of pager production and planted small but powerful explosives inside.
According to analysts, Israel also set up a fake company to supply equipment to Hezbollah, a years-long project that would seem fictitious even in a spy thriller.
But that was not the end. A day later, on September 18, at about the same time in the afternoon, another low-fi gadget, a walkie-talkie used by Hezbollah cadres, exploded in the middle of a funeral for those killed in pager attacks.
The next day, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who himself had told the group’s members to use low-fi devices so they would not be targeted by Israel via their smartphone positions, made his first public comments, in which he acknowledged the “unprecedented blow” but also vowed “harsh retaliation and just punishment” against Israel.
Although there is little doubt that Israel was behind the operation, questions remain. Why now? Is this the start of the widely feared Israeli offensive into southern Lebanon? Or did Israel activate the explosives now because it fears the entire operation could be put at risk?
“In the midst of his ordinary life”
The impact of the explosions was felt in Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon: the southern Beirut suburbs, the Bekaa Valley in the south of the country and the east, as well as in Syria.
At least 37 people were killed and thousands injured in the two attacks.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among the wounded. But those killed included a 10-year-old girl and another child. The most common wounds were cut hands and eyes, as hospitals were full.
“Hezbollah has suffered a very serious blow at the strategic level, a very impactful and comprehensive blow that affects the operational side and the cognitive side,” said Yoram Schweitzer, a former intelligence officer who now works at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
“The targets may have been Hezbollah members, but many of them were caught in the middle of their normal lives, in their communities,” said Peter Harling, founder of the Synapse Lab think tank.
“This is also a violation that is extremely difficult to explain.”
UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned that the simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowing who was around them at the time “is a violation of international human rights law.”
Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said international humanitarian law prohibits the use of “booby traps” in order to avoid putting civilians in serious danger and “to avoid creating the kind of devastating scenes that are repeatedly playing out in Lebanon.”
The ‘Israeli Front’
Meanwhile, espionage professionals have praised the way the operation was carried out.
“This is not a technical achievement. But it is the result of human intelligence and enormous logistics,” said a person working for a European intelligence service who asked not to be named.
The small devices, owned by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, were intercepted by Israeli services before they could reach Lebanon, according to several security sources who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
But the Taiwanese company denied manufacturing them and pointed to its Hungarian partner BAC.
Founded in 2022, the company is registered in Budapest. Its CEO Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono appears as the only employee there.
According to Hungarian authorities, these devices never arrived on Hungarian soil.
The New York Times, citing three intelligence sources, said that BAC was “part of an Israeli front”, and that at least two other shell companies had been created to conceal the real identities of the pager makers, who were Israeli intelligence officers.
It describes the pager as a “modern-day Trojan Horse”, as the Greeks are said to have used a wooden horse to enter the city of Troy during the Trojan War.
‘Impressive Operation’
The attack comes nearly a year after Hezbollah’s ally Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7 that sparked the war in Gaza.
Since then the focus of Israeli shelling has been on the Palestinian territory, but since October there has been almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in the border area, forcing thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said the focus of the war was shifting toward Lebanon, while the government said a key objective was securing the northern front so Israelis evacuated from the region could return home.
Schweitzer said that despite the spectacular nature of the equipment operation, it does not represent the end of Israel’s work to weaken Hezbollah.
“I don’t think this impressive operation, which has tactical advantages … has yet reached the strategic level.
“This does not change the equation, it is not a decisive victory. But it sends another signal to Hezbollah, Iran and others,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
