Exploding pagers, psychological warfare: Israel’s attack on Hezbollah

Beirut, Lebanon – At least nine people were killed and some 3,000 injured, including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, when thousands of pagers exploded – nearly simultaneously – in Lebanon.

The attack on Tuesday, which purportedly targeted members of the Hezbollah group, caused havoc in civilian areas and overwhelmed hospitals.

A resident of the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp told Al Jazeera traffic was heavy as bloodied people arrived at the nearby Al Rassoul al-Azam Hospital.

Lebanese hospitals called on all available medics to report for duty as injured people poured through their doors in need of treatment, many covered in blood and in visible pain.

Iranian media said Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was injured by an exploding pager.

Iran’s mission in Beirut later posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying Amani’s treatment was “progressing well”, adding the reports of his “physical condition and vision are false”.

Attacks were also reported in neighbouring Syria.

An officer inspects a car in which a pager exploded in Beirut on September 17, 2024 [Hussein Malla/AP Photo]

Hezbollah pledges ‘fair punishment’

Videos circulated online of men out and about – buying fruit or checking out at the grocery store – when a small explosion sends them tumbling to the ground and bystanders running from the detonation.

Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said more than 200 people are in critical condition in some 150 hospitals. Most injuries were in the face, hands and stomach.

People across the country described scenes of horror as the sound of explosions and screams of pain rang out in the streets.

Among the dead was Fatima Abdallah Jaafar, a 10-year-old from Saraaine in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, who died when her father’s pager exploded.

Hezbollah blamed Israel and declared to exact a “fair punishment” on their enemies.

The Lebanese government also held Israel responsible for the attack.

However, Israel refrained from making any remarks. Israeli media reports said the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered ministers not to give interviews at this time.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israel announced the expansion of its war goals to include northern residents returning to their homes.

This extends the war goals from Gaza to across the Lebanese border, while Israeli rhetoric over an expanded war – including a possible ground invasion – intensifies.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the time to avoid a military confrontation in Lebanon was running out and that the “only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities” would be through military action.

Hezbollah officials have said since October last year that they would consider the fight over if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

Suspicion and conspiracy theorists

The United States has denied any information about the attack beforehand.

US officials said they had no prior knowledge and were still gathering facts. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US wants a “diplomatic resolution” to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

The scale of the attack shocked many as speculation over how Hezbollah’s communication network was penetrated was rife and conspiracy theories began to spread.

One, which spread rapidly on WhatsApp, had a woman’s voice claiming the attack was known about in advance by the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC).

The basis for this seems to be that AUBMC switched to a new system on August 29.

However, AUBMC announced in response to the rumours, that the upgrade to its paging system was implemented as far back as April, and what happened in August was simply an activation.

Deep security breach

Hezbollah recently received a shipment of pagers after secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah insisted that members stop using mobile phones to avoid being hacked or targeted by Israeli aerial attacks.

Photos of the pagers show they were AR-924s from the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo. The company quickly announced that it had authorised a Hungarian company called BAC to use the Gold Apollo trademark for certain regions.

The AR-924, its statement said, “is produced and sold by BAC. We only provide brand trademark authorisation.”

The aftermath posed a second risk for Hezbollah, according to Ralph Baydoun, a data analyst at Beirut-based Influeanswers, who said after the attack, “[the Israelis] would know the names and locations of all operatives who were attacked”.

“In addition, they could easily monitor traffic in and out of hospitals through their eyes and ears from the skies or through the hacking of surveillance cameras on roads or in hospitals or the systems within hospitals.”

Defence analyst Hamze Attar said this was Israel telling Hezbollah: “We can harm you more than this.”

Former British Army officer and bomb disposal specialist Chris Hunter agreed.

“They’re sending a message to every single enemy of Israel around the world that: ‘It could be you next,’” he said.

“They’re also sending a message to say: ‘We can target anything, we can target your communications network, we can target something that’s on your body, we can even target something you’re likely to carry in your trousers, pants, pocket, and that’s going to stop you from ever having children again.’

“Those sorts of messages are very, very potent.”

Embedded explosives

Officials have not confirmed how the explosions happened.

In the immediate aftermath, some analysts speculated that the pagers were hacked, forcing the lithium batteries to overheat and explode.

But as more videos of the explosions emerged, and more details about the casualties, several analysts pointed to supply chain tampering or manipulation of the hardware before it reached Hezbollah’s hands.

Several analysts agreed that explosives could have been planted in the batteries and then triggered by a coordinated message or code.

Hunter, the bomb disposal specialist, said the blast and injuries were inconsistent with lithium battery explosions and that it was unlikely so many batteries could have exploded at once.

“First of all, you just can’t get that many lithium batteries to explode at once just by sending some sort of impetus to a pager,” he told Al Jazeera.

An ambulance carrying people injured in pager explosions arrives at the AUBMC in Beirut, on September 17, 2024 [Hassan Ammar/AP Photo]

“Secondly, the blast isn’t consistent. Lithium batteries go ‘bang’ and they burn, but they don’t cause high explosive blast injuries.

“The blast injuries that I’ve seen are all consistent with about 1 to 2 ounces – 50 to 60gm – of military-grade high explosive, which you could fit into a pager.”

Hunter, who also worked as an expert witness on the Rafic Hariri assassination trial at The Hague, said all the Hezbollah phones he analysed as part of that case came from one or two suppliers at most.

“They tried to keep it tight and Israel knows this,” he said, suggesting that Israeli operatives likely got access to the pagers at the source, at the production facility, and somehow, through “coercion” or “manipulation” got the supplier – knowingly or not – to supply the pagers.

“Then at a time and place of your choosing, you could send a single message and that would cause every single one of those pagers to detonate,” he said.

“It sounds like it’s the stuff of conspiracy theories, but we know that Israel conducts very imaginative attacks.”

Other experts agreed the devices had been likely compromised with explosives.

“Everything could be tampered with,” Attar said.

“Think as if you are an intelligence officer, if you are planning something that complicated to go off in one day, you’re going to work on all the elements … you need to work on the pager’s case itself and on explosives [in the battery], and the microprocessor and the safety trigger. It’s multilayered.”

Attar said regardless of what was tampered with, it would have to be done in a way that still passed Hezbollah’s inspections.

Disequilibrium in technology and capability

While Hezbollah promised a response, analysts said Tuesday’s attack showed a strong disparity in technological capabilities between the two sides.

“Whenever you want to go into war with someone else who has such advances in technology and capabilities in tampering and hacking into supply chains and stuff like that, that’s where you have disequilibrium,” Hadi El Khoury, a Paris-based cybersecurity expert, told Al Jazeera.

“If you don’t have your own supply chain then the device in your pocket is not hacker-proof.”

As for Iran or their allies in the “axis of resistance”, “when they use Siemens or Microsoft Windows or any technology that comes from the West, this means that somehow, somewhere, you will have a weak element in your chain”, El Khoury said.

Analysts said the attack’s level of sophistication will force Hezbollah to rethink its communication strategy and much more.

Hezbollah has to “think about supply chains for walkie-talkies they imported and the UAVs drones”, Attar said.

“In all of this, there is a supply chain and now they have to think about what has been compromised in that supply chain.”