Israel planted 5,000 pager explosives months before deadly blasts, Lebanese security sources say

Israel’s spy service injected explosive materials activated by coded messages into thousands of pagers during production, months before they were imported by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, a senior Lebanese security source said. Hezbollah fighters were using the low-tech devices, produced by the Taiwan-based company Gold Apollo, in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, sources said. Gold Apollo said on Wednesday that the devices used in the blasts were manufactured by another company based in Budapest.

Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria but that another company based in Budapest manufactured them.

Pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded near-simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding nearly 3,000. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.

The AR-924 pagers were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in Hungary’s capital, according to a statement released Wednesday by Gold Apollo.

At hospitals in Beirut on Wednesday, the chaos of the night before had largely subsided, but relatives of the wounded continued to wait.

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