Israel’s Mossad planted explosives in Hezbollah’s pagers 5 months ago: Reports

Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside 5000 Taiwan-made pagers ordered by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, news agency Reuters reported, citing a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.

Pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding several thousand.

The senior Lebanese security source alleged that the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.

“Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner,” the source told Reuters.

The Iran-backed militant group had ordered 5,000 beepers made by Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, which were brought into the country in April-May, according to the sources. The security source identified the model of an exploded pager as an AP924 variant.

The plot appears to have been many months in the making, according to the sources.

Sources who spoke to Sky News Arabia alleged that the Israeli spy agency placed a quantity of PETN, a highly explosive material, on the batteries of the devices, and detonated them by raising the temperature of the batteries from afar.

However, Israeli authorities or the army have not commented on the developments.

Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking.

Israel has allegedly used similar tactics in the past as well. According to a former US National Security Agency intelligence analyst, David Kennedy, Israel had allegedly planted 15 grams of RDX explosive in a mobile phone to kill Hamas leader Yahya Ayyash in 1996. The device detonated when he made a call to his father. Israel’s intelligence agency Shin Bet was involved in this.