Israel Planted Explosives in Hezbollah’s Taiwan-Made Pagers, Sources Indicate

By Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israel’s Mossad spy agency installed a small amount of explosives in 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers that were ordered by the Lebanese group Hezbollah months before a series of detonations on Tuesday, according to a senior Lebanese security source and another source.

These events point to a significant security failure within Hezbollah, as the explosions resulted in the deaths of nine individuals and injured nearly 3,000, including members of the group and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.

Hezbollah, which receives backing from Iran, has promised to take action against Israel, while the Israeli military has not commented on the incident.

The plot appears to have been in the works for several months, as reported by multiple sources. The senior Lebanese security source indicated that the pagers were manufactured by Gold Apollo, a company based in Taiwan, and were brought into Lebanon in the spring.

A specific model identified was the AP924, which, like other pagers, is capable of receiving and displaying text messages, but does not support phone calls. Hezbollah fighters have been using these pagers as a low-tech communication method to avoid detection by Israeli tracking technologies, according to two sources familiar with the group’s operations.

The senior Lebanese source stated that the pagers had been tampered with by Mossad "at the production level." The source explained, "The Mossad injected a board inside the device that includes explosive material activated by a code. This alteration is very difficult to detect by any means, even with scanning devices."

According to the source, 3,000 of the pagers detonated upon receiving a coded message, which triggered the explosives. Another security source mentioned that up to three grams of explosives had gone "undetected" within the new pagers for several months.

Neither Israel nor Gold Apollo have provided immediate comments regarding this situation.

Images of the destroyed pagers indicated a design and labeling consistent with those produced by Gold Apollo, based in Taipei.

The attack has left Hezbollah reeling, with fighters and civilians wounded or dead. One anonymous Hezbollah official described the detonations as the group’s "biggest security breach" since the onset of the conflict involving Hamas and Israel on October 7.

"This represents a profound counterintelligence failure for Hezbollah, one of the most significant in decades," commented Jonathan Panikoff, the former U.S. deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East.