At least nine individuals lost their lives and nearly 3,000 others were injured when pagers utilized by Hezbollah members, including combatants and medics, simultaneously detonated across Lebanon. Here’s a summary of what we currently know about the pager explosions.
The detonations commenced around 3.30pm (4.30pm, UAE time) on Tuesday in the southern Beirut suburbs known as Dahiyeh and the eastern Bekaa valley, which are strongholds of the anti-Israel militant group Hezbollah. The explosions persisted for approximately an hour, with Reuters witnesses and Dahiyeh residents reporting that they could still hear explosions at 4.30pm (9.30pm, UAE time). According to security sources and footage analyzed by Reuters, some of the detonations occurred after the pagers rang, prompting the fighters to touch them or bring them up to their faces to check the screens.
The explosions were relatively contained, as per footage reviewed by Reuters. In two separate clips from closed-circuit video of supermarkets, the blasts appeared to only injure the person wearing the pager or the individual closest to it. Hospital video and social media footage seemed to depict individuals with facial injuries, missing fingers, and gaping wounds at the hip where the pager was likely worn. The blasts did not appear to cause significant damage to buildings or start any fires.
Israel's Mossad spy agency allegedly inserted a small amount of explosives inside 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers ordered by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before the detonations, according to a senior Lebanese security source and another source. The Lebanese source indicated that the group had ordered pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, which were reportedly brought into the country earlier this year. The source identified a photograph of the model of the pager, an AP924. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo, a Taiwan-based pager manufacturer. Hezbollah did not respond to questions from Reuters regarding the make of the pagers. Gold Apollo's founder stated that the company did not manufacture the pagers used in the explosions in Lebanon; they were produced by a company in Europe that had the right to use the Taiwanese firm's brand.
Hezbollah fighters began using pagers in the belief that they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations, according to two sources familiar with the group's operations. Three security sources informed Reuters that the pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months.
Hezbollah announced it was conducting a "security and scientific investigation" into the causes of the blasts and stated that Israel would receive "its fair punishment." Diplomatic and security sources speculated that the explosions could have been caused by the devices' batteries detonating, possibly due to overheating. However, others suggested that Israel might have infiltrated the supply chain for Hezbollah's pagers. The New York Times reported that Israel concealed explosive material within a new batch of the pagers before they were imported to Lebanon, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation. Several experts who spoke with Reuters expressed doubt that the battery alone would have been sufficient to cause the blasts. Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium-ion battery safety at Newcastle University, noted that the damage seemed inconsistent with past cases of such batteries failing.
Another reason to doubt the explosions were caused by overheating batteries is that typically only a fully charged battery can catch fire or explode, according to Ofodike Ezekoye, a University of Texas at Austin mechanical engineering professor. Israeli intelligence forces have previously placed explosives in personal phones to target enemies, as detailed in the 2018 book Rise and Kill First. Hackers have also demonstrated the ability to inject malicious code into personal devices, causing them to overheat and explode in some instances.
Lebanon's foreign ministry labeled the explosions an "Israeli cyberattack," but did not provide details on how it had reached that conclusion. The country's information minister described the attack as an assault on Lebanon's sovereignty. Israel's military declined to respond to Reuters' questions on the pager blasts. The US State Department stated that Washington was gathering information and was not involved. The Pentagon indicated there was no change in US force posture in the Middle East in the wake of the incident.
Analysts see the potential for escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, which have exchanged cross-border fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza last October. However, experts are more skeptical, for now, about the possibility of triggering an imminent all-out Israel-Hezbollah war, which the US has sought to prevent and which it believes neither side desires. Matthew Levitt, former deputy director of the US Treasury's intelligence office and author of a book on Hezbollah, suggested that the pager explosions could disrupt Hezbollah's operations for some time. Jonathan Panikoff, the US government's former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, noted that Hezbollah might downplay its "biggest counterintelligence failure in decades" but rising tensions could eventually erupt into full-scale war if diplomacy continues to fall short.
