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Guterres Warns of Serious Risk Following Explosion of Pagers in Lebanon

Local residents gather in front of a hospital on September 18, 2024 in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon after communication devices exploded for the second consecutive day. AFP
Local residents gather in front of a hospital on September 18, 2024 in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon after communication devices exploded for the second consecutive day. AFP
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Guterres Warns of Serious Risk Following Explosion of Pagers in Lebanon

Local residents gather in front of a hospital on September 18, 2024 in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon after communication devices exploded for the second consecutive day. AFP
Local residents gather in front of a hospital on September 18, 2024 in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon after communication devices exploded for the second consecutive day. AFP

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said the explosion of a large number of communication devices across Lebanon confirms there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon.
Guterres' warnings came while several world leaders and officials warned that the situation on the border between Israel and Hezbollah could deteriorate following the Israeli “unprecedented security breach.”
At least 12 people were killed and around 2,800 wounded in Lebanon in an attack targeting the pagers of Hezbollah members on Tuesday.
Walkie-talkies and solar equipment exploded in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon on Wednesday in an apparent second wave of attacks targeting devices. They came shortly after Israel's Cabinet made the return of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel a formal goal of the war.
Guterres told reporters in New York on Wednesday, “I think that what has happened is particularly serious, not only because of the number of victims that it caused, but because of the indications that exist that this was triggered.”
He added, “Because obviously the logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a preemptive strike before a major military operation...There is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon, and everything must be done to avoid that escalation," Guterres said.
For his part, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said on Wednesday there must be an independent, thorough and transparent investigation as to the circumstances of these mass explosions, and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held to account.
He noted that the simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.
The same opinion was echoed by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who considered the situation extremely worrying.
“I can only condemn these attacks that endanger the security and stability of Lebanon and increase the risk of escalation in the region,” Josep Borrell said.
“Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians, including children among the victims,” he added.
Borrell said the “European Union calls on all stakeholders to avert an all-out war, which would have heavy consequences for the entire region and beyond.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that what happened is another act of hybrid warfare against Lebanon, which has harmed thousands of innocent people.
In a telephone call with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday expressed sorrow over pager explosions in Lebanon, saying Israel's attempts to spread conflicts in the region are extremely dangerous.
Erdogan also stated that efforts to stop Israeli aggression will continue.

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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)

Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making that targeted Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie talkies three months ago.
Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war, The Associated Press said.
The agents spoke with CBS “60 Minutes” in a segment aired Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to hide their identities.
One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn't realize it was buying from Israel, its enemy. The walkie-talkies were not detonated until September, a day after booby-trapped pagers were set off.
“We created a pretend world,” said the officer, who went by the name “Michael.”
Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, kicked in in 2022 after Israel's Mossad intelligence agency learned Hezbollah had been buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, the second officer said.
The pagers had to be made slightly larger to accommodate the explosives hidden inside. They were tested on dummies multiple times to find the right amount of explosive that would hurt only the Hezbollah fighter and not anyone else in close proximity.
Mossad also tested numerous ring tones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make someone pull the pager out of their pocket.
The second agent, who went by the name “Gabriel,” said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices as dustproof, waterproof, providing a long battery life and more.
He described the use of shell companies, including one based in Hungary, to dupe the Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, into unknowingly partnering with the Mossad.
Hezbollah also was unaware it was working with Israel.
Gabriel compared the ruse to a 1998 psychological film about a man who has no clue that he is living in a false world and his family and friends are actors paid to keep up the illusion.
“When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad,” Gabriel said. “We make like ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene. In their experience, everything is normal. Everything was 100% kosher including businessman, marketing, engineers, showroom, everything.”
By September, Hezbollah militants had 5,000 pagers in their pockets.
Israel triggered the attack on Sept. 17, when pagers all over Lebanon started beeping. The devices would explode even if the person failed to push the buttons to read an incoming encrypted message.
The next day, Mossad activated the walkie-talkies, some of which exploded at funerals for some of the approximately 30 people who were killed in the pager attacks.
Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than actually killing Hezbollah fighters.
“If he just died, so he’s dead. But if he’s wounded, you have to take him to the hospital, take care of him. You need to invest money and efforts,” he said. “And those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don’t mess with us.’ They are walking proof of our superiority all around the Middle East.”
In the days after the attack, Israel's air force hit targets across Lebanon, killing thousands. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his bunker.
By November, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a byproduct of the deadly attack by Hamas group in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ended with a ceasefire. More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants, health officials have said.
The agent using the name “Michael” said that the day after the pager explosions, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on their air conditioners out of fear that they would explode, too.
“There is real fear,” he said.
Asked if that was intentional, he said, “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are. We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.”