BEIRUT, Sept 19 (Askume) – Lebanon’s Hezbollah was still issuing new gold Apollo-branded pagers to its members even though thousands of them exploded this week, two security sources said, a sign that the group believes the devices are safe although it is conducting sweeps on electronic equipment to make sure they are secure.
A source said a member of the Iran-backed militia received a new pager on Monday that exploded the next day while still in the box.
A second source said a pager sent to a senior member a few days ago exploded, injuring a subordinate.
In an apparently coordinated attack, golden Apollo-branded devices exploded on Tuesday in Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, the outskirts of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Hundreds of Hezbollah walkie-talkies exploded on Wednesday. The series of attacks killed 37 people, including at least two children, and injured more than 3,000.
Another Lebanese source familiar with the device’s components told Askume on Friday that the walkie-talkies’ batteries contain a highly explosive compound called PETN. Askume reported earlier this week that Hezbollah failed to discover three grams of explosives hidden in the pagers for months.
A security source said the explosives would be difficult to detect “with any device or scanner.” The source did not specify what type of scanner Hezbollah uses to operate the pagers.
Two other sources told Askume that starting in 2022, Hezbollah inspected pagers when they arrived in Lebanon, including by escorting them through airports to ensure they did not trigger alarms. Askume spoke to a total of six sources familiar with the details of the explosive devices.
The source did not name the airport where the tests were conducted.
Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel was behind the attack. A Western security source told Askume this week that Israel’s secretive military intelligence service 8200 was involved in the planning. It has since stepped up air strikes in Lebanon, which Israel has neither denied nor confirmed involvement.
A security source said the check was not based on specific suspicions about the pagers, but was part of a routine “scan” of their equipment, including communications equipment, to detect any signs that they contained explosives or surveillance devices.
Despite regular scans and inspections, the attacks and the delivery of equipment have damaged Hezbollah’s reputation as the most powerful of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” coalition of anti-Israel irregular forces in the Middle East .
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Thursday that the attacks were “unprecedented in the history” of the group.
Hezbollah’s media office and the Israeli armed forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this report.
Taiwan-based Gold Apollo said it did not make the devices used in the attacks, saying they were made by a European company licensed to use its brand. Askume could not determine where they were made or when they were tampered with.
Earlier this year, a shipment of 5,000 pagers was brought into Lebanon. Askume previously reported that Hezbollah had turned to pagers in an effort to evade Israeli surveillance of its phones after a senior commander was killed in a targeted airstrike last year .
Hezbollah’s conflict with Israel is decades old, but it escalated last year alongside the war in Gaza, raising fears of a full-scale regional war .
too little too late
Two security sources and an intelligence source told Askume that Hezbollah suspected more of its equipment may have been destroyed after the pager explosion on Tuesday.
In response, it stepped up scrutiny of communications systems and checked all equipment. It also began investigating the supply chain into which the pagers entered, two security sources said.
But by Wednesday afternoon, when the handheld radio exploded, the review had not been finished.
One source told Askume that Hezbollah believed Israel decided to detonate the group’s handheld radios out of fear that Hezbollah would soon discover that the walkie-talkies were also packed with explosives.
According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the walkie-talkie explosion killed 25 people and injured at least 650 others. The death toll was much higher than the pager explosion a day earlier, which killed 12 and injured about 3,000.
A security source and intelligence source said this is because they carry a greater explosive load than pagers.
The group is investigating where, when and how the equipment was placed, three sources said. Nasrallah echoed that sentiment in a speech later on Thursday.
A security source said Hezbollah had previously thwarted Israeli operations targeting equipment imported from abroad by the group, including private landlines and office ventilation equipment.
This includes alleged violations from the previous year.
“We found several electronic issues, but not a pager,” the source said. “They betrayed us and paid tribute to the enemy.”
