A wave of pager explosions across Lebanon and Syria has killed at least 11 and injured over 2,700 individuals, mostly targeting Hezbollah members and reportedly including Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. The pagers had been acquired from a Taiwanese company named Gold Apollo and were hidden with explosive chargers somewhere before their import to Lebanon.
Immediately after the attack, the Wall Street Journal quoted regional security analyst Michael Horowitz as suggesting that either the pagers had malware that damaged or overheated the lithium-ion batteries inside or a remotely triggered explosive charge inside that triggered the explosion.
The New York Times reports that while the Israeli military declined to comment, American and other officials briefed that Israel was responsible for the attack and carried it out by hiding one to two ounces of explosive material next to the batteries in each pager in a new batch of pagers produced in Taiwan for export to Lebanon.
It’s unclear at the moment whether or not the pagers were rigged at Gold Apollo. Sky News reports that the president of Gold Apollo, Hsu Ching-Kuang, said his company didn’t make the pagers. Instead, they claimed they were manufactured under license by BAC, located in Europe, which then put Gold Apollo branding on them.
The explosions come after Israel’s claim of foiling a Hezbollah plan to assassinate one of its former senior defence officials. While Hezbollah has previously stated that it’d like to avoid a frontal clash with Israel, the group has vowed to punish the latter after the explosions, promising “fair punishment.” Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary has also condemned the explosions, calling them an “Israeli aggression.” The US, on the other hand, has denied any involvement or knowledge of the attacks.
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