After nearly a year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon was rocked in September when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded, killing dozens and injuring thousands. love.
A man on September 18 holds a walkie-talkie after removing the battery during the funeral of those killed when pagers exploded on September 17, in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
In the recent 60 Minutes program of CBS News (USA), two recently retired senior spies from the Mossad intelligence agency told in detail how they created and sought to deliver the two types of communication devices mentioned above. into the hands of Hezbollah, according to CBS News on December 22.
“We want them to feel vulnerable, and they really are vulnerable. We can’t use the pager anymore because we’ve already done that. We’ve moved on to the next thing. And they will have to keep trying to guess what’s next,” one of two former Mossad agents, wearing a mask and using the fake name Michael, told the 60 Minutes program.
Weaponization of walkie-talkies
Mossad’s walkie-talkie campaign is to wage war through deception and fraud. The work to weaponize walkie-talkies began more than a decade ago when Israel detonated the device in Lebanon in September.
“A walkie-talkie is a weapon, like a bullet, a rocket or a mortar,” Mr. Michael said. This person revealed that the radio battery, manufactured at a Mossad facility in Israel, contained an explosive device. The radio is designed to be inserted into the chest pocket of a tactical vest for soldiers.
Hezbollah purchased more than 16,000 walkie-talkies with the above explosive devices attached. “They got a good price,” Mr. Michael said.
The price cannot be too low because Israel does not want Hezbollah to be suspicious. Mossad also needed to conceal its identity as the seller and ensure that the radios could not be traced back to Israel. Therefore, Mossad established shell companies to penetrate the supply chain.
“We create a fake world. We are a global production company: we write the script, also direct, produce, star. And the world is our stage “, Mr. Michael emphasized.
The goal of the pager plan
The pagers are designed to be attached to tactical armor used in combat, but Mossad wants to install devices that Hezbollah members carry with them at all times. Accordingly, in 2022, Mossad began developing trap pagers, according to another former Mossad agent, who also wore a mask and used the fake name Gabriel when chatting with CBS News’ 60 Minutes program.
Gabriel said the Mossad was aware that Hezbollah was purchasing pagers from Gold Apollo, a company in Taiwan. The Gold Apollo pager is shiny and can fit in a pocket, while the Mossad needs a larger pager that can hold explosives inside, according to Mr. Gabriel.
The photo taken on September 18 in the southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon shows the remains of an exploded pager on display at an undisclosed location.
Mossad tested a pager placed inside a glove, near the mannequin’s face, to adjust the amount of powdered explosive needed to injure the user, but not the other person. next door, according to Mr. Gabriel. The plan was to injure only Hezbollah members with the pager, not those nearby.
The pagers have no intelligence capabilities and cannot be used for surveillance, but can only be used as miniature bombs, according to Mossad. “In essence, this is a non-smart device. This is why they use it. There is almost no way to eavesdrop on it,” Mr. Gabriel said.
Mossad also tested pager ringtones. Gabriel explains that they wanted a sound that would make the user feel urgent and have to take it out of their pocket. Mossad also tested the time it took a person to answer a pager: an average of 7 seconds.
Convince Hezbollah to buy pagers
Gabriel recalls the day he showed off his pager to Mossad Director Dadi Barnea. “And he was very angry. He told us: no one will buy such a large device, it is not comfortable to carry in a pocket. It is very heavy,” Mr. Gabriel said.
Mr. Barnea asked Gabriel to go back to the drawing board, but Gabriel spent the next two weeks successfully convincing his boss of the advantages of the pager.
The advantages of the pager that Mr. Gabriel cited were later falsely advertised on YouTube. Accordingly, this device has been advertised as rugged, dustproof and waterproof, with long battery life. Mossad also posted fake testimonials online.
“It has become the best product in the field of pagers in the world,” Gabriel said, claiming that Mossad did such a good job promoting the pager that people outside of Hezbollah also wanted to buy the device. been contacted.
A Lebanese soldier stands guard near a fire truck at the scene of a reported pager explosion in southern Lebanon on September 18.
Gabriel also revealed that Mossad had set up shell companies, including one in Hungary, to trick Gold Apollo into working with them. Mossad produced the pagers entirely under a Gold Apollo licensing agreement. The goal is to make the pagers appear legitimate to Hezbollah.
“When they buy from us, they don’t know that they are buying from Mossad. We do it like the ‘Truman Program’ (1998 American science fiction comedy film), everything is done by us. I control behind the scenes,” Gabriel said.
Mossad also hired a Gold Apollo saleswoman that Hezbollah had worked with, but she did not know that she was working with Mossad. The employee provided Hezbollah with the first batch of pagers for free upgrades. By September 2024, Hezbollah had about 5,000 pagers in its pockets.
Time to detonate the pager and walkie-talkie
The question for Israel is when to detonate the pagers and radios used by members of Hezbollah. There were signs that Hezbollah might be suspicious of these devices, so Mr. Barnea gave the green light to detonate the pagers on September 17.
At 3:30 p.m. on September 17 (Lebanon time), pagers began exploding across Lebanon, leading to chaos, and hospitals were filled with injured people. Most of the explosions went as planned, injuring only those with pagers, according to two former Mossad agents.
“The day after the pager exploded, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on the air conditioners because they were afraid they would explode. So the fear really happened,” Michael confirmed.
The day after the pager explosion, Mossad finally activated the radios that had been lying dormant for 10 years. Some machines went off at the funerals of those killed by exploding pagers.
A total of about 30 people were killed and 3,000 injured in the two pager and walkie-talkie explosions.
Was Mossad’s plan successful?
Two days after the pager attack, then-Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, known for his passionate oratory, gave a humbling speech. Mr. Gabriel said Mr. Nasrallah looked defeated.
“He lost this war. And his members looked at him in that speech. They saw a broken leader. This was the turning point of the war,” Gabriel said.
In the following days, the Israeli Air Force attacked targets across Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 people, including many civilians. On September 27, Israel dropped a large bomb on Mr. Nasrallah’s bunker, killing him. Subsequently, the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah took effect at the end of November.
Mr. Gabriel said that the two pager and walkie-talkie explosions along with the Israeli army’s attacks “put Hezbollah in a very difficult situation: without a command, members lost fighting spirit, so begged for a ceasefire,” according to CBS News.
There is currently no information on the reaction of Hezbollah or Mossad to the above revelation.
