Mossad reveals details of Lebanon pager attacks in US interview

Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making, which targeted Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie talkies three months ago.

The agents spoke with the US’ CBS  “60 Minutes” in a segment aired on Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to conceal their identities.

One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn’t realise it was buying from Israel. 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”.

At least 42 people were killed in the electronic device attacks on 17 and 18 September. At least 4,000 were injured in these attacks which occurred at the onset of Israel’s escalated violence on Lebanon, before it invaded in early October.

Israel’s war in Lebanon went on to kill over 3,600 Lebanese, particularly in the south, a umber of Beirut suburbs and the Bekaa Valley. 

On November 27, Lebanon and Israel agreed to a 60-day ceasefire to halt hostilities, during which Israeli forces must withdraw from southern Lebanon. Despite this, Israel has reportedly violated the truce several times.

Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, started 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 Israel was behind the operation.

“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 members had 5,000 pagers in their pockets.

Israel triggered the attack on September 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 those who were killed in the attacks.

Gabriel said the goal was more about “sending a message” than actually killing Hezbollah fighters.

“If he’s just dead, 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,” he claimed.

In the days after the attack, Israeli forces targeted a umber of Hezbollah leaders, chiefly Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated in late September.

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.”

Israel has been waging war in the region since October 7 last year, killing over 45,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in acts labelled as genocidal. Israel has also carried out aggression in Syria, and against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.