“Macca” in three layers • Invisible to x-rays • This is how the refined pager attack was carried out
Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, has a long history of complex operations, and the pager attack was just one in a series of attacks aimed at decimating Hezbollah. A Lebanese source told Reuters that the agents who built the pagers produced a battery containing a small but powerful charge of plastic explosives and a new type of detonator, invisible to X-rays.
The pagers’ rechargeable battery must have contained the explosive pentyl. Between two rectangular battery cells, a thin layer, six grams, of the explosive must be placed together with a detonator. This three-layer “sandwich” was then wrapped in plastic to finally be encased in a metal casing.
The battery was comparable in size to a matchbox. Bomb experts claim the composition of the explosive charge was unusual because it did not contain a standardized mini-detonator and lacked metal components.
Noticed a degraded battery life
Hezbollah, when they received the pagers in February, reportedly searched them for explosives, but found none.
Since the explosives took up nearly a third of the battery’s volume, the battery’s power was also significantly degraded. The battery in the pagers had a capacity of 2.22 watt hours, the usual for a battery of this size is 8.75.
Hezbollah must have noticed after a while that the batteries discharged unusually quickly. Even so, the group did not suspect that the pagers posed a security problem, and continued to release the pagers to their members just hours before the attack.
Photo: Birgitta Ericson
Built backstory
From the outside, the pager’s lithium-ion battery, the LI-BT783, looked like any other. But the battery, like the searchers, had the problem that it was not on the market and a Google search without search results would lead Hezbollah to become suspicious.
– You wanted to be sure that they would find something when they searched. If they didn’t find anything, it wouldn’t be good, a former Israeli spy told Reuters.
To avoid suspicion, the Mossad listed the well-known Taiwanese company Gold Apollo as the manufacturer of the custom-made pager, the AR-924. The company’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters the day after the attack that he had been contacted in 2021 by a former employee, Teresa Wu, and her high-ranking boss “Tom” to discuss a licensing deal.
Hsu gave the duo the right to market the pagers in Apollo Gold’s name. Despite not being impressed by the design, he uploaded images and a description of the product to the company’s website. However, the seekers could never be purchased directly from Gold Apollo.
The chairman says that he had no idea about the deadly design of the pagers and believes that the company is also a victim of the plot.
Used aggressive sales tactics
The rechargeable battery was also available in at least two online stores. In addition, the battery’s specifications were discussed in forums dedicated to batteries in particular. Much of the pagers’ planted, misleading digital footprints have been purged from the internet over time, but archived copies of the websites still remain.
Hezbollah began using pagers at the beginning of the year after they discovered that Israel was tapping their regular cellphones.
An internal investigation conducted by Hezbollah has revealed that Israeli agents used aggressive sales tactics to ensure that Hezbollah’s purchasing manager chose the AR-924, a source told Reuters. The seller who presented the product to Hezbollah made a very favorable offer, in order to further reduce the price during the negotiation.
The attacks in Lebanon on September 17 and 18
On Tuesday, September 17, at 3:30 p.m. local time, the first pagers exploded in several locations in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. The explosions were preceded by the pagers beeping, an indication of an incoming call. Also in the city of Beqaa in Lebanon, and in the Syrian capital Damascus, pagers exploded.
For about an hour after the first explosions, pagers continued to detonate in the city, according to information provided to Reuters. Crowds of people flocked to hospitals across Lebanon, leading to great confusion and chaos in emergency rooms.
The following day, Wednesday 18 September, at 17:00 local time, similar scenes unfolded in several locations in Lebanon as new explosions took place. This time it must have been about walkie-talkies that detonated. The units were purchased by Hezbollah in February 2024.
At least one of the explosions on Wednesday is said to have occurred in connection with a funeral for some of the victims of Tuesday’s attack, which led to panic in the procession.
In total, 39 people died and 3,400 were injured in the attacks with pagers and walkie-talkies.
The attacks on electronic communications devices in Lebanon escalated the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. After the attacks, several high-ranking figures in Hezbollah have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. Including then Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, as well as his likely successor Hashem Safieddine.
TV4 News story
In one of the biggest intelligence operations the world has seen, thousands of pagers were blown up in Lebanon. Thousands injured, many killed.