While many unknowns remain about the simultaneous explosion on Tuesday, September 17, in Gaza, Lebanon and even Syria, of thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite party, the manner in which this unprecedented attack could have been carried out is becoming clearer. An overview of the main known elements.
No hacking, but an explosive
Nearly 24 hours after the explosion of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives and fighters that killed at least twelve people and injured nearly 2,800, a consensus among experts is emerging on how this unprecedented attack was orchestrated: it was not a “simple” hack aimed at overheating the batteries of these rudimentary devices, but most certainly an operation called a “supply chain attack.” It allowed a few grams of a powerful explosive to be inserted into the pagers intended for Hezbollah, transforming the communications devices into bombs.
The explosions filmed, in Lebanon in particular, as well as the injuries of the victims, show that the explosions were relatively powerful. However, while batteries can explode in the event of overheating in exceptional circumstances, the resulting detonations are of low intensity. Olivier Simon, technical director of DXOmark and battery expert, confirms to World that “The probability that these are explosives seems very high. An exploding battery normally releases flames. However, we don’t see any appearing on the videos.”. American and other security sources have confirmed to several media outlets the trail of explosives placed in the beepers and triggered remotely by Israel.
“Clearly, it’s an explosion, it’s not a battery exploding, in the sense of ‘lithium exploding'”esteemed by the World a former member of the French intelligence services. “That means the batteries were modified, with ten to twenty grams of explosive, something like that.”
Directly accused by Hezbollah, Israel had not yet officially reacted as of Wednesday morning. But the highly technical nature of the operation, necessarily the work of one or more very advanced intelligence services, the temporality of the attack and the nature of the target leave little doubt as to Israeli involvement. Precedents, of much more limited scope, exist: in 1996, Yahya Ayyash, considered the main bomb maker of Hamas, was killed by the explosion of his mobile phone, in which 15 grams of RDX, a powerful explosive, had been inserted. The attack was attributed to the Shin Beth, the Israeli internal intelligence services.
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