Israeli intelligence manipulation allegedly led to Tuesday's wave of explosions that reportedly injured thousands of people
The series of explosions that killed several people and injured thousands more in Lebanon on Tuesday were organized by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, according to sources cited by Western media.
The Israeli government has not claimed responsibility and has reportedly instructed its officials not to comment on the operation, which killed at least 10 people, including a child, and maimed or injured thousands. Although an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initially hinted at the Jewish state's involvement in X, the post was later deleted.
American and other officials cited by The New York Times said Israel had hidden explosives in a shipment of pagers imported from Taiwan. The microcharges, weighing several grams each, were placed next to the battery of each device, the report said.
Both Reuters and the NYT identified the company Gold Apollo as the source of the sabotaged equipment. They said the pagers were manufactured by the European company BAC.
The intercepted batch included more than 3,000 devices that the militant group Hezbollah distributed among its members across Lebanon, with a handful of them reaching its allies in Iran and Syria, the NYT reported. Reuters estimated the number of tampered devices at 5,000, of which 3,000 were detonated.
US government sources told Axios that Israel had ordered the detonations out of fear that Hezbollah operatives might discover the explosives. One of the officials described it as “A moment of use it or lose it.” An Israeli source said the booby-trapped pagers were intended to be used as a crippling initial blow in a possible all-out war against the movement.
On Monday, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, Amos Hochstein, visited Israel for meetings with Netanyahu and senior members of his administration.
Washington says it is putting pressure on West Jerusalem to sign a peace deal with Hamas, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group that launched last year's October 7 attack on Israel, prompting the ongoing military operation. The conflict has become the source of new regional tensions, with low-intensity clashes regularly taking place on the Lebanese border.
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According to Axios, the wave of pager blasts has raised fears of a wider conflict. Lebanon's government and Hezbollah leaders have blamed Israel for what interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati has called an act of “criminal assault” against his country.
One of the victims of the attack was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini. Tehran, an ally of both Hamas and Hezbollah, has already been the target of Israeli attacks during the conflict.
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