Israel was behind the attack that caused thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members to simultaneously explode in Lebanon on Tuesday, CNN has learned.

The operation, which left thousands injured across Lebanon, was the result of a joint operation between Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, and the Israeli military.

Israel placed explosive material in a batch of Taiwanese-made pagers which were imported into Lebanon and destined for Hezbollah, the New York Times reported, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation.

How it happened: The explosives were planted next to the battery in each pager, and a switch embedded to detonate them remotely, according to the New York Times. The devices detonated simultaneously after receiving a message on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 9 people and injuring more than 2,800 — including at least 170 of whom were in critical condition, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

Diplomatic and security sources speculated that the explosions could have been caused by the devices' batteries detonating, possibly through overheating.
But others said that Israel might have infiltrated the supply chain for Hezbollah's pagers. The New York Times reported that Israel hid 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 said they doubted the battery alone would have been enough to cause the blasts.
Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium ion battery safety at Newcastle University, said the damage seemed inconsistent with past cases of such batteries failing.

xtreme wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:06 am Certain cuntries are taking it to the next level.

Down.

Doc67 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:23 am It's interesting to note they still use pagers, 30 years after everybody else switched to phones. They obviously got tired of being blown up with pinpoint accuracy thanks to their smartphones tracking them so well.

Analysts have been quick to express shock at the scale of Tuesday's attack - saying Hezbollah prides itself on its security measures.
Some suggested a hack may have caused the pager batteries to overheat, causing the devices to explode. Such an act would be unprecedented.
But many experts say that is unlikely, with footage of the explosions inconsistent with the batteries overheating.
Some analysts say instead that some sort of supply chain attack, which involved the pagers being tampered with during their manufacture or in transit, was more likely.
Supply chain attacks are a growing concern in the cyber security world with many high-profile incidents recently caused by hackers gaining access to products whilst they are in development.
But these attacks are normally contained to software. Hardware supply chain attacks are far rarer as they involve getting hands on to the device.
If this was indeed a supply chain attack it would have involved a huge operation to secretly tamper with the pagers in some way.
A former British Army munitions expert, who asked not to be named, told the BBC the devices could have been packed with between 10 to 20 grams each of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component.
This, said the expert, would have been armed by a signal, something called an alphanumeric text message.

Tootsfriend wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:33 am Any country that does something like that should be labelled by the world as a terrorist country. There is no way they could say that those pagers were all in the hands of Hezbollah members and not being used by innocent people.