How Mossad Organized a Pager Operation and Infiltrated Hezbollah: Details Revealed in Media

How Mossad Organized a Pager Operation and Infiltrated Hezbollah: Details Revealed in the Media Angelika Baybak

How Israel Infiltrated Hezbollah/Collage by Channel 24

On September 17, thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah terrorist group exploded simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria. The Israeli intelligence services had been preparing for this operation for years.

The Washington Post journalists analyzed the details and established how the Israeli intelligence service Mossad prepared for the operation. The journalists noted that all the information was obtained during interviews with Israeli, Arab and American security officials, politicians and diplomats, as well as Lebanese officials and people close to Hezbollah.

An operation that has been going on since 2015

Two years ago, in 2022, Hezbollah received an offer to purchase Apollo pagers, more specifically the AR924 model. Although the pager seemed bulky, it was ideal for the terrorist group's fighters. It was waterproof and had a large battery that could work for months without recharging. Moreover, what attracted Hezbollah most was that the manufacturer claimed that the pagers were untraceable, even by Israeli intelligence services.

The terrorist group's leaders were so impressed that they bought 5,000 Apollo pagers. In February, they were distributed to mid-level fighters and support staff. No one suspected that the pagers contained an ingenious Israeli bomb inside, as well as a two-stage decryption procedure that ensured that most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it exploded.

As the publication's sources said, the idea for the pager operation arose in 2022. Parts of the plan began to be implemented more than a year before the Hamas attack, which took place on October 7, 2023. Israel's Mossad intelligence service has been working for years to infiltrate Hezbollah, and the terrorists were so afraid of surveillance that they refused to even use cell phones.

Then the idea of ​​creating a “communications Trojan horse” arose. Hezbollah was actively looking for secure devices for exchanging messages, and Israeli intelligence services came up with several tricks that literally forced the militants to purchase explosive devices designed and manufactured in Israel.

The first part of the plan is booby-trapped radios. It began to be implemented in Lebanon back in 2015. Thus, the Mossad developed two-way radios that contained huge batteries, hidden explosives and a transmission system that gave Israel complete access to Hezbollah communications. For 9 years, Israeli intelligence services have been eavesdropping on Hezbollah militants, reserving the ability to blow them up at any time.

How pagers with explosives got into Hezbollah

In 2022, a new opportunity arose for Israel: a pager with a powerful explosive. Since Hezbollah was afraid of sabotage, the devices had to be from someone other than Israel, the United States, or any of those countries' allies. So in 2023, the militants received an offer from the Taiwanese manufacturer Apollo. It is a well-known brand worldwide that has no discernible ties to Israel. At the same time, the Taiwanese company itself was unaware of the Mossad plan.

The offer to sell came from a trusted marketing person who is associated with Apollo and trusted by Hezbollah. The woman, whose identity and nationality are not disclosed, was a former sales representative in the Middle East for a Taiwanese firm that had formed her own company and acquired a license to sell a line of pagers under the Apollo brand. It was she who, in 2023, offered Hezbollah militants a deal for one of the products her company sold – the robust and reliable AR924.

She maintained contact with Hezbollah and explained to the militants why the pager with the larger battery was better than the original model. One of the main advantages of the AR924 was that it could be charged with a cable. And the batteries lasted longer, said an Israeli official familiar with the operation.

As it turned out, the actual production of the devices was outsourced, and the marketing representative was unaware of the operationand that the pagers were physically assembled in Israel under Mossad surveillance. The engineers did the unthinkable, because the bomb component was so carefully hidden that it was virtually undetectable even if the device was disassembled. Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah disassembled some of the pagers and may even have X-rayed them. In addition, the connection to Israeli services was also undetectable.

“Explosive Message” from Israel

Mossad thought of everything down to the smallest detail. Thus, the pagers were programmed in such a way that only one electronic signal would simultaneously activate the explosives on 5,000 pagers.

To ensure maximum harm to the Hezbollah terrorists, the explosion was caused by a special two-step procedure that is needed to view protected messages. Thus, in order to read the message, it was necessary to press two buttons, and therefore use both hands.

Interestingly, even most senior Israeli officials did not know the details of this operation. Only on September 12, five days before the operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gathered his advisers and told them about the booby-trapped pagers. The United States was also unaware of the operation.

When the Israeli government learned of the Mossad operation, heated debate ensued. Many officials claimed that Hezbollah and Lebanon could prepare a violent response. However, Netanyahu approved the operation, and on September 17, thousands of Apollo-branded pagers throughout Lebanon and Syria began ringing or vibrating simultaneously.

A short sentence in Arabic appeared on the screen: “You have received an encrypted message.” The Hezbollah militants obediently followed the instructions, and so they took the pagers with both hands, and at that moment, thousands of devices exploded. The explosives also detonated on those devices that did not read the encrypted message, because the encrypted algorithm remotely detonated all the Apollo pagers.