Israel planted explosives in Hezbollah pagers ordered from Taiwan

There’s a new report out tonight that suggests the exploding pagers weren’t because of the lithium battery being overheated by some Israeli hack to the network.

Rather, the report says Israel intercepted a shipment of pagers headed for Lebanon and embedded explosives near the battery and a switch which could active the explosive material.

Here’s more from the New York Times:

Hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday in an apparently coordinated attack that targeted members of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group in the region, Lebanese and Hezbollah officials said.

The Israeli military declined to comment, but American and other officials briefed on the operation said Israel was responsible for the attack and had executed it by hiding small amounts of explosive material in each pager within a new batch of pagers made in Taiwan and imported into Lebanon.

Three officials briefed on the attack said that the operation had targeted hundreds of pagers belonging to Hezbollah operatives who have used such devices for years to make it harder for their messages to be intercepted. The use of pagers had became even more widespread after the Oct. 7 attacks, when Hezbollah’s chief warned that Israeli intelligence had penetrated the cellphone network, security experts said. The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Here’s more detail about the operation:

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.

At 3:30 p.m. in Lebanon, the pagers received a message that appeared as though it was coming from Hezbollah’s leadership, two of the officials said. Instead, the message activated the explosives.

The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding, according to three of the officials.

Independent cybersecurity experts who have studied footage of the attacks said it was clear that the strength and speed of the explosions were caused by a type of explosive material.

“These pagers were likely modified in some way to cause these types of explosions — the size and strength of the explosion indicates it was not just the battery,” said Mikko Hypponen, a research specialist at the software company WithSecure and a cybercrime adviser to Europol.

Keren Elazeri, an Israeli cybersecurity analyst and researcher at Tel Aviv University, said the attacks had targeted Hezbollah where they were most vulnerable.

Leave it to the Biden/Harris administration to blab about the details of this attack.

Even so, if true this is more impressive than I thought because this operation took a lot of planning and careful executive to carry out. Well done Israel.