A series of explosions that killed several people and injured thousands more in Lebanon on Tuesday was allegedly organized by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, according to sources quoted in Western media.
The Israeli government has not claimed responsibility for the incident and has reportedly instructed officials not to comment on the operation that killed at least 10 people, including a 10-year-old girl, and injured thousands. An assistant to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initially hinted at Israel’s involvement on X, but the post was later removed.
American and other officials quoted by the New York Times said Israel had hidden explosives in a shipment of pagers imported from Taiwan. The micro charges, weighing a few grams each, were placed next to the battery of each device, according to the report.
Both Reuters and the NYT identified the source of the sabotaged devices as Gold Apollo. They stated that the pagers were manufactured by the European company BAC.
The seized shipment contained more than 3,000 devices, which the militant group Hezbollah distributed to its members throughout Lebanon, with some reaching allies in Iran and Syria. The number of rigged devices is said to have been 5,000, of which 3,000 were detonated.
Sources within the US government told Axios that Israel ordered the detonations out of concern that Hezbollah operatives would discover the explosives. One of the officials described it as a “now or never” situation. An Israeli source claimed that the booby-trapped pagers were intended to be used as a devastating pre-strike in a possible large-scale war with the movement.
On Monday, Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, visited Israel for meetings with Netanyahu and senior members of his government.
Washington says it is pressuring West Jerusalem to sign a peace deal with Hamas, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group that carried out the October 7 attack last year that triggered the current military operation. The conflict has become a source of heightened regional tensions, with low-intensity clashes occurring regularly along the Lebanese border.
The latest wave of explosions from the pagers has heightened fears of a wider conflict, according to Axios. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah leaders have accused Israel of what acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati called an act of “criminal aggression” against the country.
One of the victims of the attack was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini. Tehran, an ally of both Hamas and Hezbollah, has already been targeted by Israel during the conflict.
