Israel Behind Deadly Pager Blasts That Targeted Hezbollah, Injuring Thousands in Lebanon

Hezbollah has vowed to respond to an Israeli attack that killed scores and wounded thousands across Lebanon on Tuesday, with pagers belonging to members of the Iran-backed militant group detonating almost simultaneously, revealing a major security breach and exposing the scale of Israeli intelligence activity.

The child was among at least nine people killed in the explosions that injured about 2,800 people, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said. At least 170 people were in critical condition, he said, although the nature of the remaining injuries was not clear.

The unprecedented attack threatens to further escalate tensions in the Middle East, which have already risen amid Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The extraordinary incident also underscores Hezbollah’s vulnerability, as its communications network was fatally breached and followed a series of targeted assassinations of its commanders.

CNN has learned that the explosions were the result of a joint operation by Israeli intelligence, Mossad, and the Israeli military. While the Israeli military said it would not comment on the explosions, both Lebanon and Hezbollah have blamed it for the attack. Iran has also blamed what it called “Israeli terrorism.”

There has been speculation about how low-tech wireless communications devices could be used. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Israel hid explosives in a batch of pagers ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo for Hezbollah. A switch was built in to detonate them remotely, it added.

Gold Apollo’s founder and chairman told reporters Wednesday that the pagers used in the attack were manufactured by a European distributor. Hsu Ching-kuang said his company had signed an agreement with the distributor to use the Gold Apollo brand.

Videos circulating on social media and news agencies show powerful explosions in various locations across Lebanon. One surveillance video shows a man selecting fruit in a supermarket when an explosion rips his bag to shreds. Bystanders run after hearing the explosion as the man falls to the ground, clutching his lower abdomen. He can be heard groaning in pain seconds later.

Other videos on social media showed large numbers of injured people, including at least one child. The injured were covered in blood, many with injuries to their faces and hands.

“This criminal and treacherous enemy will certainly suffer the just punishment for this sinful attack, both in expected and unexpected ways,” Hezbollah said in a statement Tuesday evening.

She later stated that her actions against Israel would continue and promised “stern reparations for the massacre committed by the criminal army on Tuesday.”

The militant group had earlier confirmed on its Telegram channel that “employees” of various Hezbollah institutions had been hit in the explosion and that a “large number” of people had been injured.

Hezbollah has long emphasized secrecy as a cornerstone of its military strategy, forgoing high-tech equipment to avoid infiltration by Israeli and American spyware.

Unlike other non-state actors in the Middle East, Hezbollah units are believed to communicate through an internal communications network, believed to be a key element of the powerful group that has long been accused of operating as a state within a state.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among the wounded in Beirut, along with two embassy staffers, according to Iranian state media. Amani had superficial injuries and was under observation in hospital, state media IRNA reported, citing his wife.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack, calling it “a grave violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and a crime by any standard” during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, according to state news agency NNA.

The Israeli military, which has been conducting retaliatory attacks against Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war last October, said in a statement after the explosions that it had not changed its advice to Israeli civilians. “The public is asked to remain vigilant and alert, and any changes in policy will be updated immediately,” it said in a statement.

Explosives placed in pagers

According to the Lebanese internal security forces, the wave of explosions affected many areas in Lebanon, especially the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The NNA reported that “hacked” pager devices exploded in the towns of Ali Al-Nahri and Riyaq in the central Beqaa Valley, causing a significant number of injuries. These places are Hezbollah strongholds.

Israel planted an explosive device in a batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon and destined for Hezbollah, The New York Times reported, citing U.S. and other officials briefed on the operation.

According to The New York Times, explosives were placed in each pager next to the batteries, and a switch was intended to allow them to be detonated remotely.

CNN previously reported that the pagers that exploded were purchased by Hezbollah in recent months, according to a Lebanese security source. The devices exploded simultaneously after receiving a message Tuesday afternoon.

Multiple photos from Lebanon on social media show damaged Gold Apollo pagers. CNN could not geolocate the social media photos, but verified that they were posted Tuesday, the same day the explosion occurred. At least one pager shown in the photos is a Gold Apollo AR924 model.

Eyewitnesses described the carnage that followed the explosions in Beirut.

“We were surprised that there were so many people there … there was blood on the roads and people were being taken to hospital in ambulances. But we didn’t know what was happening,” said one witness, who did not want to give his name for security reasons.

A witness told CNN he went to the hospital to visit a friend who was carrying one of the pagers when the explosion occurred.

“This device was not only in the hands of people belonging to (Hezbollah), but in the hands of all people. There were people working in the security sector who used this device and they were also injured,” he said.

David Kennedy, a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst, told CNN that the explosions seen in videos shared online appear to be “too large to be a remote and direct hack that would overload the pager and cause the lithium battery to explode.”

“It is more likely that Israel had human agents… in Hezbollah… The pagers would have been equipped with explosives and would probably only detonate when a specific message was received,” he said.

“The complexity needed to pull this off is incredible. It would require a lot of different intelligence and execution components. Human intelligence (HUMINT) would be the primary method used to pull this off, along with supply chain interception to make modifications to the pagers.”

Kim Ghattas, a Lebanese journalist and writer for The Atlantic, told CNN that Hezbollah recently “went low-tech” to prevent more of its operatives from being killed. In a February speech, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah urged his fighters to get rid of their cellphones, saying, “Turn them off, bury them, put them in an iron box and lock them up.”

Pagers manufactured by a European distributor

New details emerged on Wednesday about how Israeli intelligence may have orchestrated the unprecedented attack.

Hsu, founder of pager maker Gold Apollo, said its European distributor started working with the Taiwanese company about three years ago.

At first, the European company imported only Gold Apollo pagers and communication products, he said. Later, the company told Gold Apollo it wanted to make its own pager and asked for the right to use the Taiwanese company’s brand, he said.

Hsu said Gold Apollo encountered at least one anomaly in its dealings with the distributor, citing as an example a bank transfer that took a long time to process.

In a statement, Gold Apollo said the manufacturer and seller of the AR924 pager is Hungarian company BAC Consulting KFT.

Taiwan has no record of Gold Apollo pagers being sent to Lebanon or the Middle East, a senior Taiwanese security official told CNN on Wednesday. Gold Apollo sent about 260,000 pagers from Taiwan between January 2022 and August 2024, mostly to the United States and Australia, the official said.

Lebanese officials have urged citizens with pagers to get rid of them, warned hospitals to be “on high alert” and asked health workers to report to work urgently to help “the large number of injured people.”

The explosion came after the Israeli security cabinet voted Monday to add another war goal to the ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah: ensuring the safe return of residents of communities along the border with Lebanon to their homes.

“Israel will continue to take action to achieve this goal,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Monday.

After almost a year of cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel, tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

The United States was “not involved” in the series of pager explosions in Lebanon and was “not aware” of any preemptive attack, a State Department spokesman said.

Following the attacks, European airlines Air France and Lufthansa have suspended flights to Tel Aviv until at least Thursday “due to the local security situation.”

Air France said it would also suspend flights to Beirut until Thursday over concerns about escalating tensions in the region.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

CNN’s Eric Cheung, Wayne Chang, Sarah El Sirgany, Pauline Lockwood and Hamdi Alkhshali contributed to this report.

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