How Israel designed explosive-laden pagers

Regular-looking pagers delivered to Hezbollah at the beginning of 2024 were, in fact, cleverly concealed bombs. This operation, suspected to be orchestrated by Israel, aimed to cripple the Lebanese group.

According to a detailed report by Reuters journalists, the pagers’ batteries held a small but potent charge of plastic explosive. A novel detonator, invisible to X-ray scanners, was also incorporated into the design according to a Lebanese source with firsthand knowledge and teardown photos reviewed by Reuters.

Creating a Believable Cover Story

To address the weakness of having no established background for this bulky new product, Israeli agents crafted fake online stores, webpages, and posts designed to deceive Hezbollah’s security checks. A Reuters examination of archived web data confirms this elaborate deception.

Unprecedented Blow to Hezbollah

This meticulously planned operation, with its stealthy pager bomb design and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, sheds light on the years-long effort that dealt a heavy blow to Israel’s Iranian-backed foe in Lebanon. The attacks have also pushed the Middle East closer to a full-blown war.

Dissecting the Deceptive Battery

The seemingly ordinary pager battery held a dark secret. A thin sheet of PETN plastic explosive (six grams) was squeezed between two rectangular lithium-ion cells, according to the Lebanese source and photos. The remaining space housed a highly flammable strip that triggered detonation. This three-layer “sandwich” was then encased in a black plastic sleeve and a metal shell, roughly the size of a matchbox.

A key aspect of the design was the absence of a standard metallic detonator. This, along with the plastic explosives, made the device invisible to X-ray scans.

Hezbollah Unaware of the Threat

Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah conducted standard security checks, including running them through airport scanners. Alarmingly, nothing suspicious was detected. The devices were likely designed to generate a spark within the battery pack, igniting the flammable material and detonating the PETN explosives, as explained by bomb experts who reviewed the pager bomb design.

The bulky battery, however, offered a clue. The explosives and their casing took up about a third of the volume, significantly reducing the battery’s power capacity. Battery experts noted this discrepancy, highlighting a substantial amount of unexplained weight in the battery pack.

The Pagers Explode

Despite noticing the shorter-than-expected battery life, Hezbollah did not raise major security concerns. Tragically, just hours before the attack, they were still distributing the pagers to their members.

On September 17th, thousands of pagers detonated simultaneously across Hezbollah strongholds, including the southern suburbs of Beirut. The explosions typically occurred after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message. The close proximity of victims to the pagers at the time of detonation was evident from the injuries sustained – eye injuries, missing fingers, and severe abdominal wounds – witnessed by Reuters reporters at hospitals. The combined death toll from the pager attack and a subsequent attack using weaponized walkie-talkies the following day reached 39, with over 3,400 wounded.

Mossad Suspected, Israel Silent

Two Western security sources pointed to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, as the mastermind behind the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. The origin of the devices remains unclear. Neither Israel’s Prime Minister’s office nor Lebanon’s Information Ministry or Hezbollah spokespersons commented on the matter for this article. Israel has maintained silence on its involvement, although comments by Israel’s Defense Minister praising Mossad’s “very impressive” results were widely interpreted as an implicit acknowledgment of their participation. U.S. officials reportedly had no prior knowledge of the operation.

The Weak Link: A Non-Existent Product

While the pager’s power source resembled a standard lithium-ion battery used in various electronic devices, there was a crucial detail – the battery, labeled LI-BT783, simply did not exist commercially.

Creating a Legend for the Pagers

To overcome this hurdle, Israeli agents fabricated a complete backstory. Hezbollah is known for its rigorous procurement procedures, and the agents ensured that if Hezbollah investigated, they would find something seemingly legitimate. This practice of creating fabricated identities or “legends” for undercover operatives is a well-established tactic in the world of espionage. What made this operation unique was the application of these techniques to a seemingly ordinary consumer product.

Gold Apollo – Unknowingly Involved?

The agents used a fake model, the AR-924 pager, to deceive Hezbollah. This custom-designed pager was sold under the brand name of a reputable Taiwanese company.

Israel planted explosives in 5,000 Hezbollah’s pagers, say sources 

Gold Apollo’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters a day after the pager attack that he was approached about three years ago by a former employee, Teresa Wu, and her “big boss, called Tom” to discuss a licence agreement.

Hsu said he had scant information about Wu’s superior, but he granted them the right to design their own products and market them under the widely distributed Gold Apollo brand. Reuters could not establish the identity of the manager, nor whether the person or Wu knowingly worked with Israeli intelligence.

The chairman said he was not impressed by the AR-924 when he saw it, but still added photos and a description of the product to his company’s website, helping give it both visibility and credibility. There was no way to directly buy the AR-924 from his website.

Hsu said he knew nothing about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the broader operation to attack Hezbollah. He described his company as a victim of the plot.

Gold Apollo declined to provide further comment. Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered. She has not given a statement to the media since the attacks.

‘I know this product’

In September 2023, webpages and images featuring the AR-924 and its battery were added to apollosystemshk.com, a website that said it had a licence to distribute Gold Apollo products, as well as the rugged pager and its bulky power source, according to a Reuters review of internet records and metadata.

The website gave an address in Hong Kong for a company called Apollo Systems HK. No company by that name exists at the address or in Hong Kong Corporate records.

However, the website was listed by Wu, the Taiwanese businesswoman, on her Facebook page as well as in public incorporation records when she registered a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year.