According to the latest disclosure from a senior Lebanese security official, Israel's pager bombing operation against Hezbollah members was carried out with batteries carefully planted with explosives. They say the technology is so advanced it's virtually undetectable.
It is reported that the method of burying the explosives in the pager battery is very sophisticated and cannot be detected. However, Lebanese officials did not specify what inspections the pagers underwent before being imported. Meanwhile, investigations continue into who made the wireless communications devices and how they entered Lebanon.
One Lebanese official noted that he inspected a broken pager and witnessed its controlled explosion. According to him, the explosive was "embedded" in the lithium battery of the pager and was almost undetectable. He had never seen anything like it.
An IED has five key components: power source, detonator, detonator, explosive and casing. Shaun Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordnance disposal expert, said that to weaponize a pager, only a detonator and explosives are needed because the pager already has the other three components.
Moorhouse pointed out that converting a pager into a weapon would need to be done in a way that is difficult to detect, such as by modifying the battery, implanting an electronic detonator and a small amount of explosives inside the metal casing. Doing so would make detection nearly impossible, even using imaging techniques like X-rays.
The background of the incident is that on September 17th and 18th, explosions of communication equipment such as pagers and walkie-talkies occurred in many places in Lebanon. According to official data, the explosion killed 37 people and injured more than 3,000 people. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah said in a speech that Israel's move crossed a red line and was tantamount to a declaration of war.
Israel has not yet claimed responsibility for the incident, but multiple media reports said the pager explosion was the result of a joint operation between the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and the Israeli military. The day after the pager bombing, Israeli Defense Minister Galante acknowledged his country's role, praising Mossad and the entire defense establishment for their "great achievements" and saying the war had entered a new phase.
Additionally, some experts said the explosive devices appeared to be hidden in pagers, suggesting a sophisticated supply chain attack involving state actors.
This is consistent with the initial assessment of the Lebanese authorities. Lebanon's mission to the United Nations said in a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Friday that a preliminary investigation found that the communications devices were planted with explosives before arriving in Lebanon and were tampered with in a "professional manner" by "foreign entities."
Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that turning communication tools into weapons, exploding simultaneously in markets, street corners and homes, represents a trend in the development of war. He added that targeting thousands of people simultaneously without knowing who had the targeted devices and their surroundings violated international human rights law.