How Israel’s Bulky Pager Fooled Hezbollah

How Israel’s Bulky Pager Fooled Hezbollah
People stand at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport, a day after hand-held radios used by terrorist group Hezbollah detonated across Lebanon's south, in Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 19, 2024. Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
Reuters
Updated:
0:00

BEIRUT—The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles’ heel.

The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.