On Tuesday, hundreds of Hezbollah-affiliated pagers detonated in Lebanon, leaving at least 12 dead and over 2,750 injured. In Syria, other Hezbollah pagers exploded as well, injuring a few people.
Israel has been blamed by Lebanon, Hezbollah, and the group’s allies. However, what actually transpired? Many analysts speculate that the solution may be found in the manner in which Hezbollah initially obtained the pagers, as this could provide information on whether the devices were altered to enable the explosives.What is known and what experts think could have happened are as follows:
What became of the pagers for Hezbollah in Lebanon?
Hundreds of pagers went off all around Lebanon at 3:30 p.m. (12:30 GMT).
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Hezbollah claimed that “pagers belonging to personnel of various Hezbollah units and organizations exploded,” killing two of its fighters and a girl.
The group supported by Iran claimed responsibility for the pager explosions, pointing out that Israel, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, has been engaging in tit-for-tat attacks across the border between Lebanon and Israel with Hezbollah.The Israeli army has declined to comment on the detonations. Hezbollah has vowed to exact revenge on Israel.
The Reuters news agency was informed by two sources with knowledge of Lebanese security matters that the Israeli espionage service, Mossad, had put explosives in 5,000 pagers that Hezbollah had ordered months prior to the explosions. According to the sources, the explosions were caused by a code that was sent to 3,000 pagers at the same time.
How did the pagers for Hezbollah blow up?
Some experts believe that the radio technology that the pagers rely on was compromised, probably through the use of manipulated code, even if the precise technique responsible for the pager explosions is now unknown. It is possible that the pager batteries overheated, resulting in a phenomenon known as thermal runaway, which ultimately led to the explosion of the pager batteries.
A few experts, such as chemical weapons expert and former British army officer Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, have conjectured that the pagers might also have been tampered with during the supply chain and wired to detonate at will.
However, military and political expert Elijah Magnier, based in Brussels, told Al Jazeera that his sources in Lebanon had provided information from Hezbollah’s first probes into pagers that did not detonate.
According to those studies, Israel packed each device with 1-3 grams (0.04-0.11 oz) of the potent explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN).
