New details on the alleged Israeli operation that resulted in the explosion of thousands of pagers used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization last month in a report published by Reuters on Wednesday.
The report stated that the batteries used in the pagers contained a very small amount of plastic explosive material, but the true innovation was the detonator, which was designed to be invisible to X-ray scans, a Lebanese source stated.
The explosive was constructed with a sheet of six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a highly explosive material, that was placed between two battery cells in a sandwich design. In addition, there was no cylindrical device to serve as the detonator as is usually used in such explosives. Without this visible metal detonator, the explosives could not be picked up on X-rays or other scanning devices when Hezbollah examined them. A further test, heating up the battery to generate a spark that would detonate any further explosives, also helped to convince Hezbollah that the devices were fake.
According to the report, this ingenious design had a problem, the fact that the explosive and detonator took up space inside the battery, reducing its power output by as much as two-thirds, which caused the pagers to have a shorter battery life than would be expected for their size. Hezbollah operatives reportedly noticed this issue when their batteries lost power sooner than expected.
In addition, the report claimed that the plan's "Achilles' heel" was that not only did the pagers not exist as a real product, but neither did the unusual batteries they used in order to incorporate the explosives.
To get around this problem, an elaborate backstory was created for the batteries, including the creation of fake web pages to fool Hezbollah operatives on the lookout for anything suspicious regarding what the terrorist organization buys. This convinced the Hezbollah operatives that they were buying a new model from the renowned Taiwanese brand Gold Apollo rather than from a company new to the market.
Gold Apollo’s chairman Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters the day after the pager blasts that he had agreed to a license agreement with the makes of the model, the AR-924, after being approached about it by a former employee three years ago. The AR-924 appeared on the Gold Apollo website as part of the license agreement.
Fake websites were also made for the battery to tout its advantages, such as claims that it would last up to 85 days and could be recharged via USB cable. Fake reviews praising the product were also posted.
Hezbollah shifted to using pagers for its communications over the last year at the behest of its former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who feared Israel would hack more advanced communications devices such as smartphones.
Thousands of Hezbollah pagers exploded near-simultaneously on September 17, after Hezbollah had fired about 8,000 rockets at northern Israel over the previous eleven months. Several dozen people were killed, and thousands were injured in the blasts. As the pagers were given by Hezbollah to its operatives and the amount of explosives used was very low, there were few civilians among the casualties.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the pager blasts, which were followed the next day by similar explosions of Hezbollah's handheld radios. In the following weeks, Israel launched Operation Northern Arrows, an operation meant to restore security to northern Israel so that the 60,000 residents who have been forced to evacuate from their homes for the last year due to Hezbollah's constant attacks, can return home safely.
Much of Hezbollah's leadership has been eliminated in airstrikes over the last month, including Hezbollah's senior leader Hassan Nasrallah. In addition, a Hezbollah plot to commit an October 7-style invasion and massacre in northern Israel, dubbed "Conquer the Galilee," was foiled by the Israeli military actions.