Hezbollah and Lebanon were barely recovering from a coordinated wave of pager explosions on Tuesday that killed at least 12 people and injured thousands when another wave of explosions occurred on Wednesday, this time involving two-way radios. WIRED, which was not able to independently confirm the footage, reported that these explosions appeared larger than those from the pagers.
Lebanon’s official news agency also covered the explosion of home solar systems which happened less than two hours after the radio blasts started on Wednesday, reports the Associated Press. The situation regarding the solar equipment attacks was still unfolding at the time of reporting.
The method used for the walkie-talkie explosions seemed to mirror the attack from Tuesday, likely due to interference at some point in the supply chain, where the devices were tampered with to include explosives. According to a report by Reuters on Wednesday, Hezbollah had bought these walkie-talkies roughly five months earlier as part of their efforts to secure their communication lines, fearing infiltration by Israeli intelligence. Reuters stated.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported after the explosions on Wednesday that more than 300 individuals were injured and nine fatalities occurred, with the incidents reported across several regions in the country. The Lebanese Red Cross stated that over 30 ambulances were deployed for treating the injured.
Though details of Wednesday’s attack are still emerging, the perpetrator of Tuesday’s exploding pager operation is widely believed to be Israel. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has intensified over the past year since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. On Tuesday, Hezbollah blamed Israel for the “criminal aggression that targeted civilians too.”
“I’m floored by the sophistication of this operation,” says Jake Williams, vice president of research and development at Hunter Strategy, who formerly worked for the US National Security Agency. “The scale of this supply chain compromise is unprecedented. It’s hard to imagine what technology Hezbollah could consider ‘safe’ at this point.”
Photos and videos posted to social media on Wednesday appeared to show handheld radios, or walkie-talkies, in various states of destruction. In many of the images, the devices, which are larger and bulkier than smartphones, had one side of their casing removed. Middle East experts citing local media reports noted that cars, scooters, and even buildings appear to have been damaged by tampered devices.
“From what we are seeing, including images circulating on social media, the devices exploding are handheld radios, possibly an Icom model,” says Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence at the risk management company Le Beck International.
The further explosions on Wednesday suggest that the perpetrators of the sabotage had extensive access to and knowledge about Hezbollah’s network. “This indicates a far deeper infiltration possibly involving assorted channels and technologies,” noted Horowitz. “Such comprehensive penetration is unprecedented.”
Israel has remained silent on the incidents, and there has been no immediate reply from the Israel Defense Forces to a query from WIRED concerning these developments.
The pagers, primarily the Gold Apollo AR-924 model, that malfunctioned on Tuesday are confirmed by the manufacturer, a Taiwan-based company Gold Apollo, to have been produced by a third-party, BAC Consulting based in Hungary. The New York Times reports that explosives, ranging from 1 to 2 ounces, were placed in these pagers, which were then distributed to members of Hezbollah. The CEO of BAC Consulting has not responded to a query from WIRED, while a Hungarian government spokesperson has stated the company merely functions as a “trading intermediary” without having manufacturing capabilities in Hungary.
After the initial explosions on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch demanded an investigation into the matter, voicing concerns that it might be impossible to account for all tampered pagers, potentially leading them to impact military and civilian sites indiscriminately.
“Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps—objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use—precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today,” Lama Fakih, the group’s Middle East and North Africa director said in a statement.
US secretary of state Anthony Blinken on Wednesday denied the US had advance knowledge of Tuesday’s attack.
“The United States did not know about, nor was it involved in, these incidents,” he said at a conference in Cairo, Egypt. “We’re still gathering the information and gathering the facts.”
