Two former Israeli intelligence agents have given new details about a deadly secret operation that Israel has been planning for years, and three months ago targeted Hezbollah elements in Lebanon and Syria using booby-trapped “pager” pagers and walkie-talkie walkie talkies.
“Hezbollah” began to strike Israel following the attack launched by the Hamas movement on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war between Israel and Hamas.
The two agents spoke to CBS’s “60 Minutes” program, in part of a report broadcast on Sunday evening, wearing masks and speaking in a modified voice to hide their identity, The Associated Press reported.
One of the agents said that the operation began ten years ago using “walkie-talkie” devices containing hidden explosives, which Hezbollah did not realize that it was buying from Israel, its enemy.
These devices did not explode until last September, a day after the detonation of the booby-trapped transmitters (pagers).The officer, who gave his name as “Michael”, added: “We created an imaginary world”.
The second phase of the plan, in which booby-trapped “pagers” were used, began in 2022 after the Israeli Mossad learned that Hezbollah was buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, as the second agent stated.
Allegedly, the “pager” devices had to be made slightly larger to fit the amount of explosives hidden inside. And they were tested on dummies several times to find the right amount of explosives that would cause harm only to the fighter without any harm to nearby people.
The Mossad also tested several ringtones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make a person take the pager out of his pocket, the American “Associated Press” reported.
The second agent, named Gabriel, said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to change the devices to larger pagers, partly by using fake ads on YouTube touting the devices as dust-and water-resistant and having a long battery life.
He also described the use of shell companies, including a company based in Hungary, to deceive the Taiwanese company “Gold Apollo” to unconsciously push it to cooperate with the Mossad.
“Hezbollah” was also unaware that the fictitious company was working with Israel. “When they buy from us, they have no idea that they are buying from Mossad,” Gabriel said. We looked like The Truman Show, everything was under control from behind the scenes. In their experience, everything is normal. Everything was 100 percent authentic, including the business people, marketing, engineers, showroom and everything”.
By September, “Hezbollah” had 5 thousand pagers in their pockets.
Israel launched the attack on September 17, when pagers all over Lebanon started ringing. And the devices would have exploded even if the person failed to press the buttons to read the incoming encrypted message.
The next day, the Mossad activated the “walkie-talkie” devices, and some of the devices exploded at the funerals of about 30 people killed in the pager attacks.
Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than killing “Hezbollah”elements.
In the days following the attack, Israeli warplanes struck targets throughout Lebanon, killing thousands. The leader of “Hezbollah”, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his shelter.
The agent, who used the name Michael, said that the day after the explosions of the pagers, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on the air conditioners for fear that they would also explode. “There was a real fear,”he added.
When asked if this was intentional, he said: “We want them to feel vulnerable, and they are. We can’t use pagers again because we’ve already done that. We have already moved on to the next thing. And they will have to keep trying to guess about what the next thing will be”.
