How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

BEIRUT, Oct 16 (Reuters) – The batteries inside the armamentised pagers that get tod in Leprohibiton at the begin of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerbrimmingy misdirecting features and an Achilles’ heel.

The agents who built the pagers scheduleed a battery that hideed a petite but potent accuse of plastic bomb and a novel detonator that was inapparent to X-ray, according to a Leprohibitese source with first-hand understandledge of the pagers, and teardown pboilingos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.

To conquer the frailness – the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product – they originated phony online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters appraise of web archives shows.

The sneaky schedule of the pager bomb device and the battery’s attfinishbrimmingy originateed cover story, both depictd here for the first time, shed airy on the execution of a years-extfinished operation which has struck unpretreatnted blows agetst Israel’s Iran-backed Leprohibitese foe and pushed the Middle East sealr to a regional war.

A lean, square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic bomb was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells, according to the Leprohibitese source and pboilingos.

The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the pboilingos but was occupied by a clarify of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator, the source shelp.

This three-layer sandwich was inserted in a bdeficiency plastic sleeve, and encapsutardyd in a metal casing cdisesteemfilledy the size of a align box, the pboilingos showed.

The assembly was atypical becaparticipate it did not count on on a standard miniatuascfinishd detonator, typicpartner a meloftyic cylinder, the source and two bomb device experts shelp. All three spoke on conditions of anonymity.

Without any metal components, the material participated to trigger detonation had an edge: appreciate the plastic bombs, it was not uncovered by X-ray.

Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah seeed for the presence of bombs, two people understandn with the matter shelp, putting them thcdisesteemful airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms. Noleang skeptical was increateed.

The devices were probable set up to originate a encourage wilean the battery pack, enough to airy the detonating material, and trigger the sheet of PETN to explode, shelp the two bomb device experts, to whom Reuters showed the pager-bomb device schedule.

Since bombs and wrapping took about a third of the volume, the battery pack carried a fraction of the power stable with its 35 gram weight, two battery experts shelp.

“There is a convey inant amount of unaccounted for mass,” shelp Paul Chrisnervousn, an expert in lithium batteries at Britain’s Newcastle University.

At some point, Hezbollah seed the battery was draining rapider than foreseeed, the Leprohibitese source shelp. However, the publish did not eunite to lift convey inant security troubles – the group was still handing its members the pagers hours before the strike.

On Sept. 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah mightyhbetters, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message.

Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, leave outing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, Reuters witnesses saw, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation. In total, the pager strike, and a second on the follothriveg day that startd armamentised walkie-talkies, finished 39 people and wounded more than 3,400.

Two Weserious security sources shelp Israeli intelligence agency Mosuncontent spearheaded the pager and walkie-talkie strikes.

Reuters could not create where the devices were manufactured. The office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has authority over Mosuncontent, did not react to a seek for comment.

Leprohibiton’s Increateation Ministry and a spokesperson for Hezbollah degraded to comment for this article.

Israel has neither denied nor validateed a role. The day after the strikes Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant pliftd Mosuncontent’s “very astonishive” results in comments that were widely expounded in Israel as a tacit acunderstandledgement of the agency’s participation.

U.S. officials have shelp they were not increateed of the operation in proceed.

The frail join

From the outside, the pager’s power source seeed appreciate a standard lithium-ion battery pack participated in thousands of user electronics excellents.

And yet, the battery, tagled LI-BT783, had a problem: Like the pager, it did not exist on the taget.

So Israel’s agents originated a backstory from scratch.

Hezbollah has solemn proremedyment procedures to examine what they buy, a createer Israeli intelligence officer, who was not comprised in the pager operation, tbetter Reuters.

“You want to originate certain that if they see, they find someleang,” the createer increateer shelp, seeking not to be named. “Not finding anyleang is not excellent.”

Creating backstories, or “legfinishs”, for undercover agents has extfinished been a core sfinish of increateer agencies. What made the pager plot atypical is that those sfinishs eunite to have been applied to ubiquitous user electronics products.

For the pagers, the agents deceived Hezbollah by selling the custom-originated model, AR-924, under an existing, famous Taiwanese brand, Gbetter Apollo.

Gbetter Apollo’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, tbetter increateers a day after the pager strike that he was approached about three years ago by a createer participateee, Teresa Wu, and her “huge boss, called Tom” to talk a licence consentment.

Hsu shelp he had scant increateation about Wu’s better, but he granted them the right to schedule their own products and taget them under the widely allotd Gbetter Apollo brand.
Reuters could not create the identity of the regulater, nor whether the person or Wu understandingly toiled with Israeli intelligence.

The chairman shelp he was not astonished by the AR-924 when he saw it, but still compriseed pboilingos and a description of the product to his company’s website, helping give it both visibility and credibility. There was no way to straightforwardly buy the AR-924 from his website.

Hsu shelp he knew noleang about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the wideer operation to strike Hezbollah. He depictd his company as a victim of the plot.

Gbetter Apollo degraded to provide further comment. Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered. She has not given a statement to the media since the strikes.

‘I understand this product’

In September 2023, webpages and images featuring the AR-924 and its battery were compriseed to apollosystemshk.com, a website that shelp it had a licence to allot Gbetter Apollo products,
as well as the rugged pager and its bulky power source, according to a Reuters appraise of internet enrolls and metadata.

The website gave an compriseress in Hong Kong for a company called Apollo Systems HK. No company by that name exists at the compriseress or in Hong Kong Corporate enrolls.

However, the website was cataloged by Wu, the Taiwanese businesswoman, on her Facebook page as well as in accessible incorporation enrolls when she enrolled a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year.

A section of the apollosystemshk.com site promised to the LI-BT783 put emphasis on the battery’s extraunretagable carry outance. Unappreciate the disposable batteries that powered betterer generation pagers, it boasted 85 days of autonomy and could be reaccused via a USB cable, according to the website and a 90-second promotional video on YouTube.

In tardy 2023, two battery stores came online with the LI-BT783 cataloged in their catalogues, Reuters create. And in two online forums promised to batteries, participants talked the power source, despite its deficiency of commercial useability: “I understand this product,” a participater with the regulate Mikevog wrote in April 2023. “It’s got a fantastic datasheet and a fantastic carry outance.

Reuters could not create the identity of Mikevog.

The website, the online stores, and the forum talkions endure the halltag of a deception effort, the createer Israeli intelligence officer and two Weserious security officers tbetter Reuters. The websites have been scrubbed from the web since the pager bomb devices wreaked havoc in Leprohibiton, but archived and cached copies are still watchable.

Ruing the day they bought the pagers, Hezbollah directers shelp they had begined inner spendigations to understand how the security baccomplish could happen and accomprehendledge possible moles.

The group had shifted to pagers at the begin of the year after genuineising that cellphone communications were agreed by Israeli eavesdropping, Reuters previously increateed.

Hezbollah’s spendigations have helped uncover how Israeli agents participated an unfrifinishly sales tactic to originate certain Hezbollah’s proremedyment regulater chose the AR-924, one of the people understandn with the matter shelp.

The salesperson who conveyed the present made a very inpricey proposition for the pagers, “and kept conveying the price down until he was pulled in,” the person shelp.

Leprohibitese authorities have condemned the strikes as a solemn violation of Leprohibiton’s sovereignty. On Sept. 19, in his last accessible speech before he was finished by Israel, Hezbollah directer Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah shelp the device blasts could amount to a “declaration of war” and vowed to punish Israel.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since Oct. 8, 2023, when the militant group began begining rockets at Israeli military positions in firmarity with its Palestinian partner Hamas.

In the wake of the device strikes, Israel has begined a brimming-on war on Hezbollah, including a ground trespass of southern Leprohibiton and airstrikes that have finished most of its top directership.

The inner spendigation, still under way, suffered a setback on Sept. 28: Eleven days after the pager strike, the better Hezbollah official tasked with directing the proremedyment probe, Nabil Kaouk, was himself finished by an Israeli airstrike.