At least 26 people including two children have been killed and 2,750 more injured, many seriously, after communication devices otherwise known as walkie-talkies, used by Hezbollah, dramatically exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Some of the devices belonging to Hezbollah also exploded in Syria, leading to some injuries.
In the latest round of blasts, exploding walkie-talkies killed 14 and injured at least 450 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
The explosions occurred in the vicinity of a large crowd that had gathered for the funerals of four victims of Tuesday’s blasts.
Hezbollah released a statement on Tuesday saying two of its fighters and a girl were killed as “pagers belonging to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions exploded”.
The Iran-backed group attributed the pager blasts to Israel, which has been involved in tit-for-tat attacks with Hezbollah across the Lebanon-Israel border since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.
https://twitter.com/expatvibes/status/1836421791943704934How did the attacks happen?
The first round of blasts began in Lebanon’s capital Beirut and several other areas of the country at about 15:45 local time (13:45 BST) on Tuesday.
Witnesses reported seeing smoke coming from people’s pockets, before seeing small explosions that sounded like fireworks and gunshots.
Citing US officials, the New York Times said that the pagers received messages that appeared
to be coming from Hezbollah’s leadership before detonating. The messages instead appeared to trigger the devices, the outlet reported.
Explosions continued for around an hour after the initial blasts, the Reuters news agency reported.
Soon after, scores of people began arriving at hospitals across Lebanon, with witnesses reporting mass confusion in emergency departments.
Similar scenes played out across the country in another round of blasts Wednesday, at around 17:00 local time (15:00 BST).
Reports suggest it was walkie-talkies that were blown up, devices that were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, according to a security source speaking to Reuters.
At least one explosion was close to a funeral being held in Beirut for some of the victims of Tuesday’s attack, creating panic among those near the procession.
Nine people have been killed and hundreds more injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
How did the Hezbollah communication devices explode?
While the exact mechanism used for the pager explosions is unclear at the moment, some experts speculate that the radio system that the walkie-talkies or pagers rely on was hacked, possibly through a doctored code. The batteries of the pagers could have been triggered to overheat, leading to a process called thermal runaway, which in turn caused the pager batteries to explode.
Some analysts, including Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer and chemical weapons expert, have speculated that the pagers may also have been tampered with along the supply chain and wired to explode on command.
But Brussels-based military and political analyst Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera his sources close to the ground in Lebanon had shared details from initial investigations carried out by Hezbollah on pagers that did not explode.
Those investigations suggest that Israel placed 1 to 3 grammes (0.04 to 0.11oz) of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a powerful explosive, in each device.
Suspicions of how explosives were placed in the devices?
Lebanon faces a range of sanctions from the United States, the European Union, and their Western partners. In addition, the US, United Kingdom, and their allies, such as Japan, list Hezbollah among “terrorist” organisations.
That means that companies both registered in these domains or trading with these countries are wary of direct transactions, especially in technology, with Hezbollah — and often with Lebanon at all.
In this case, Magnier said, the pagers procured by Hezbollah were with a third party and they sat at a port for three months, awaiting clearances, before they were finally moved to the Lebanese group.
Hezbollah suspects that it was during those three months that Israel managed to plant explosives in the devices, the military analyst said.
He added that Hezbollah’s investigation so far shows that metal balls were placed around the pager batteries, allowing the explosive force to propel metal fragments outward, “significantly increasing the lethality of the blast”. He added that this was also done during the three months when the shipment was on hold.
Who placed the devices?
Labels seen on fragments of exploded pagers point to a pager model called the Rugged Pager AR-924. But its Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo has denied any involvement with the explosions. When the BBC visited Gold Apollo on Wednesday local police were swarming the company’s offices, inspecting documents and questioning staff.
The founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, said his company had signed an agreement with a Hungarian-based company – BAC – to manufacture the devices and use his company’s name. He added that money transfers from them had been “very strange”, without elaborating.
BBC Verify has accessed BAC’s company records, which reveal it was first incorporated in 2022.
Its CEO Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono told NBC that she knew nothing about the explosions. “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she said.
The Hungarian government said the company had “no manufacturing or operational site” in the country.
What prompted the communications device attack?
Unnamed US and Israeli officials told Axios that detonating the pagers all at once was initially planned as the opening move in an “all-out” offensive against Hezbollah. But in recent days Israel became concerned Hezbollah had become aware of the plan – so they were set off early.
Israeli officials have not commented on the allegations, but most analysts agree that it seems likely it is behind the attack.
Prof Simon Mabon, chair in International Relations at Lancaster University, told the BBC: “We know that Israel has a precedent of using technology to track its target” – but he called the scale of this attack “unprecedented”.
Lina Khatib, from the UK-based Chatham House, said the attack suggested that Israel has “deeply” infiltrated Hezbollah’s “communications network”.
In its statement accusing Israel of being behind the attacks, Hezbollah said it held the country “fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians”.
Hezbollah has not yet attributed blame for the attacks.
Why does Hezbollah use pagers?
Hezbollah has relied heavily on pagers as a low-tech means of communication to try to evade location-tracking by Israel. Pagers are wireless telecommunications devices that receive and display alphanumeric or voice messages.
They are much harder to track than mobile phones, which have long since been abandoned as simply too vulnerable, as Israel’s assassination of the Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash demonstrated as long ago as 1996 when his phone exploded in his hand.
In February, Hassan Nasrallah directed Hezbollah fighters to get rid of their phones, saying they had been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence. He told his forces to break, bury, or lock their phones in an iron box.
Experts now say the directive, issued during a live televised address, may have forewarned Israeli intelligence operatives that the group would be seeking a new – likely lower-tech – method of communications.
Will the Hezbollah-Israel conflict escalate?
Hezbollah is allied with Israel’s arch-nemesis in the region, Iran. The group is part of Tehran’s Axis of Resistance and has been engaged in a low-level war with Israel for months, frequently exchanging rocket and missile fire across Israel’s northern border. Entire communities have been displaced from both sides.
The blasts came just hours after Israel’s security cabinet made the safe return of residents to the north of the country an official war goal.
While visiting an Israeli airbase on Wednesday, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the country was “opening a new phase in the war” and the “centre of gravity is shifting to the north through the diversion of resources and forces”.
Despite the ongoing tensions, observers say that until now both sides have aimed to contain hostilities without crossing the line into full-scale war. But there are fears that the situation could spiral out of control.
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