Special Operations: Exploding Pagers
Ezoic
December 3, 2024: The September 17th mass exploding pager attack against Hezbollah did enormous damage to the Iran-backed anti-Israel group. The pager attack, and the next day exploding walkie-talkie attack, were planned several years in advance. Israeli secret intelligence agency Mossad came up with the idea, and apparently several more that have not been implemented yet. Within Mossad there were disagreements of detonating the pagers and walkie-talkies because both were also being used to collect information on where Hezbollah members were and what they were up to. The pagers could be tracked and their messages retried by Mossad. Same deal with the walkie-talkies.
Some Mossad members pointed out that these were valuable sources of information about what Hezbollah was up to. By detonating these devices Mossad killed about 40 Hezbollah members and put nearly 3,000 in the hospital, some with missing hands, fingers or other waist-level body parts. After the attack a paranoid and terrified Hezbollah went back to using couriers to communicate. If an Iranian embassy or consulate was nearby, their encrypted messaging capabilities could be used. These facilities were limited in number and were no replacement for the missing pagers and walkie-talkies.
Hezbollah was encouraged to buy 5,000 Gold Apollo AR924 pagers because they were compact, weighing 133 g and had a long lasting lithium ion battery. Recharging took 150 minutes and power lasted nearly three months. The four line LCD display showed brief text messages on the 73mm x 50mm x 27mm device. You could hold the pager in the palm of your hand to read messages. That is why so many users lost hands or were blinded when the pagers exploded.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsf/articles/202412032216.aspx#gsc.tab=0
