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They literally never knew what hit them. Hezbollah is still trying to figure out how Israel allegedly intercepted a shipment of new pagers from Taiwan and planted one or two ounces of explosives in them. Then, with nobody the wiser, shipped 5,000 pagers merrily on its way to end up in the pockets of Hezbollah operatives and fighters.
The reported details of this operation reveal a startlingly thorough job of planning and execution right down to the fake message from Hezbollah leadership that detonated the devices. Israel has not taken responsibility for the attack, though it’s widely believed they were behind it.
The death toll has risen to 11, with nearly 3,000 wounded, many of them critically.
The 5,000 pagers were ordered from the Taiwanese electronics company Gold Apollo. « Most were the company’s AR924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment », reports the New York Times.
The explosives were embedded next to the battery and included a switch that would detonate the device remotely. At 3:30 p.m. local time, the pagers beeped three times, as they were programmed to do, with a message that appeared to be from Hezbollah headquarters.
A few seconds later, the pagers detonated.
Hezbollah did not reply to questions from Reuters on the make of the pagers. Gold Apollo’s founder said the company did not make the pagers used in the explosions in Lebanon.
