As Lebanon is still in a state of shock from Tuesday’s pager-blasts attack and reports are revealing new aspects of the incident, Israel might face new charges for violating international law.
Although no official statement has yet been released by the Israeli authorities claiming responsibility for Tuesday’s pager explosions in Lebanon, the New York Times wrote in a report on Wednesday that Israel was the mastermind behind the coordinated attack. Due to the explosions, thousands of people were injured and several people were killed. Though the target of the attack was supposed to be members of the Hezbollah group, reports suggest that a good many Lebanese civilians, notably emergency workers, were among the injured.
Israel is already facing international criticism for violating international law in Gaza, and Tuesday’s massive attack in Lebanon can lead to a new case of potential war crimes against Tel Aviv.
What caused the explosions? cyber attack, battery explosion, or explosives?
Some US officials briefed on the operation told the New York Times that the pagers were intercepted and tampered with before reaching Lebanon.
A senior Lebanese security source also told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from a Taiwan-based manufacturing company called Gold Apollo a few weeks ago. The company told reporters on Tuesday that the pagers were actually manufactured by a European company using the same brand.
Two other Lebanese intelligence officials also told The Times that a small amount of explosives and a switch were placed in each pager, which caused thousands of pagers to explode simultaneously Tuesday afternoon across Lebanon. These explosives, the intelligence officials said, were embedded in the pagers a few months ago. Then at about 3:30 p.m. in Lebanon, pagers simultaneously received a detonator-like message causing the pagers to detonate remotely.
Elijah Magnier, a military and security analyst based in Brussels believes that “in order for Israel to plant an explosive trigger in such a large number of pagers, it probably needed access to the supply chain of these devices to get these pagers before delivered to Hezbollah, opened them and embedded explosives in them.”
Likewise, Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute says that “these explosions were not related to exploding lithium batteries. I am almost certain that a small plastic explosive device was planted next to the battery to detonate remotely via call or text.”
Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs on Wednesday also dismissed the possibility that the explosions were caused by the pagers’ lithium batteries, saying in a statement that according to Gold Apollo, the battery inside the pagers is about the size of a standard AA battery “without the possibility of causing an explosion that can lead to such casualties.”
Where were the pagers manufactured?
Photos posted on social media after the attack show the back panels of the exploded pagers with the word “GOLD” in the text above the “AR-9” model number. The design of the text corresponds to the back of the pager model “AR-924” produced by Gold Apollo, which uses a lithium battery in its pagers.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, however, said in a statement that it had contacted Gold Apollo and, after reviewing media reports and photos, the company was asked whether the products were indeed theirs, and they replied that “it might be”.
Hours later, however, Gold Apollo announced in a statement that the AR-924 pagers that exploded in the attack were not manufactured by the company, but by a company called BAC located in Budapest, Hungary, which is authorized to use the trademark.
According to data from Taiwan’s Ministry of Economy, there is no record of direct export of these pagers to Lebanon. However, the shipment has likely been made to Lebanon via a third-party company, where Israel was probably able to obtain the cargo and tamper with the pagers.
These types of attacks do not have a long history and are considered new. Only in 1996, senior Hamas member Yahya Ayash was killed when he answered a tampered cell phone, possibly part of an operation by Israeli agents.
