Thousands of people were reportedly injured by exploding pagers in Lebanon and Syria. Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad said nine people, including a child, were killed and around 2,800 others injured, Lebanese state media agency NNA reported.
Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosives in a new batch of Taiwanese pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.
Reuters reports, based on information from a “senior Lebanese security source and another source,” that Hezbollah imported 5,000 pagers this spring that were allegedly made by Gold Apollo, a Taiwan-based manufacturer. The source claims they were modified by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency before shipment by adding a circuit board containing up to three grams of explosives.
However, on Wednesday, Gold Apollo CEO Hsu Ching-Kuang told reporters in Taiwan that his company did not manufacture the pagers that exploded, but that they were built by a European company that licensed its brand. “The product was not our product. It was just that our brand was on it,” Hsu said, as reported ReutersAccording to CNN, the distributor began importing products from Hsu's company about three years ago and later asked to manufacture its own devices under the Gold Apollo brand.
CNN also reports that “Israel was behind the attack, which was a joint operation between Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and the Israeli military.”
The papers were apparently intended as a simple communication device to prevent tracking and espionage. In a speech earlier this year, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah told his members: “This cell phone is the collaborator and the murderer.”
Reuters According to sources, 3,000 of the pagers exploded after 3:30 p.m. local time after receiving an encrypted message. New York Times, the message “seemed to come from the Hezbollah leadership.”
The explosions occurred while Hezbollah has been at war with Israel for months. They coincided with the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and a day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said time was “running out” for a diplomatic solution with the group. CNN reports that the Israel Defense Forces said it would not comment on the detonations.
Videos of the explosions and their aftermath have already spread across news channels and social media (warning: the video below shows people being injured in the attacks). One appears to show a man checking out his pager at the checkout counter in a store before it explodes and he is knocked backwards. Another surveillance video from a market was posted by The New York Times shows a man who was injured when an explosive device exploded in his bag.
Update, September 17: Added additional details from media reports about the origin of the explosives.