"Made in Israel"

Exploded pagers were produced by the Mossad

Dozens of Hezbollah members were killed and thousands injured, some seriously.(Bild: AP/Hussein Malla)

What has long been suspected now seems clear: According to security circles, the exploded Hezbollah pagers were manufactured in Israel. A network of front companies led to the assumption that they were manufactured in Europe. New information is also available on the further course of action.

The pagers and radios, which looked like devices from companies in the Far East, were developed by the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad and secretly manufactured in Israel, reported the Washington Post, citing unnamed Israeli, Arab and US security services.

The batteries of the pagers were prepared with high-explosive explosives that were virtually undetectable, the newspaper continued. They had been detonated by an encrypted message.

Procedure was intended to cause the greatest possible damage
To decode the message, two buttons had to be pressed simultaneously - to injure both hands if possible and thus incapacitate the recipient. There was initially no official confirmation of the report.

The pagers were literally shredded.(Bild: AFP)

Hezbollah had only been distributing the AR924 pagers to its members since February. The cell phone precursors cannot be used to make calls, but they can be used to receive messages. From Hezbollah's point of view, their advantage was that they could not be located like cell phones.

The walkie-talkies, which were detonated shortly after the pagers, had been in use by Hezbollah since 2015 and provided Israel with real-time information from the organization.

Brokerage firm not privy to plans
Hezbollah had bought the pagers from the employee of a Taiwanese company, who did not know that the devices actually came from Israel and had been prepared with explosives.

At least 39 people were killed in the explosions and around 3,000 were injured, some of them seriously. The majority of the victims were Hezbollah members. However, there were also civilian victims.

Since the terrorist attack by Hamas and other extremist groups on southern Israel almost a year ago, Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran, has been attacking Israel with rockets and grenades out of "solidarity" with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as it says. This will continue until there is a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.