Israel was able to listen to Hizbollah’s communications with radio phones infiltrated into Lebanon for almost ten years, says a US newspaper.
American The Washington Post magazine (WP) has acquired a wealth of additional information about the paging devices and walkie-talkies supplied by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad to the Hezbollah organization. The information comes from Israeli, Arab and US officials, politicians and diplomats who remain anonymous.
The Mossad detonated thousands of devices in late September, severely injuring countless Hezbollah members as well as civilians. Several people also died.
According to WP, Mossad already started thinking about the “Trojan horse of communication” ten years ago. Mossad knew Hezbollah was looking for a communications device that could not be hacked by Israel.
The solution was walkie-talkies, which the Mossad started delivering to Lebanon in 2015. They had a two-way radio device and a large battery. Inside the battery, Mossad had hidden an explosive and a signal receiver that was supposed to trigger the explosive.
With the help of the walkie-talkie, the Mossad was also able to listen to the users’ conversations.
WP’s sources do not say how the radio phones came into the hands of the extremist organization without Hezbollah members being able to question their origin. However, they provided the Israelis with valuable information about the enemy’s activities for nine years.
Paging devices available
In 2022, i.e. even before the attack on Israel by the Hamas terrorist organization, Mossad became interested in using search devices.
The Taiwanese company Apollo, which sells its products all over the world, came to the rescue. The company’s sales representative in the Middle East was a woman who had acquired the sales rights for the reliable and larger-than-usual AR924 model.
In 2023, the woman offered equipment to Hezbollah, which agreed to the deal. Hezbollah and the seller had no idea that the devices had actually been built in Israel under the supervision of the Mossad, reports WP.
A devastating design
A small explosive was embedded in the battery of the device weighing less than one hundred grams, which could not be detected even if the device was disassembled, WP is told.
The explosive could be triggered by a signal alone, but there was also a more diabolical option in use. If the Mossad sent the recipient a message that looked encrypted, the recipient could only read it by pressing several keys at the same time, WP sources say.
This ensured that both hands of the recipient were on the device. When the explosion came, both hands were mutilated.
– So the user would certainly not be combat fit, says the source interviewed by WP.
Nasrallah in sight
Mossad had big trump cards up its sleeve, but in the turmoil of the Gaza war, the Israeli leadership began to fear that the bomb traps hidden in the devices would be revealed.
At the same time, the country’s leadership had a tough discussion about what to do about the war in Gaza and the Hezbollah movement that supports the Palestinians.
According to WP, many Israeli leaders were unaware of the booby traps until September 12th. At that time, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed his security advisers of the possibility of striking Hezbollah in an extraordinary manner. The US didn’t know about the bombs either.
The US was known to be pressuring the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to conclude a ceasefire independent of the situation in Gaza. It would include Hezbollah withdrawing from Israel’s border and ending its continued rocket fire in support of the Palestinians.
According to WP, some senior Israeli politicians were in favor of the ceasefire proposal. However, Nasrallah had stated that a ceasefire must first be achieved in Gaza.
On September 17, the internal debate continued in Israel, but at that time pagers began to explode in Lebanon. The next day, the radio phones exploded. A few days later, Israel began extensive bombing in Lebanon.
On September 28, Israel announced that Nasrallah had been killed in an attack on his bomb shelter.