Pager blasts show Israel can tamper with Hezbollah’s supply chains, former CIA officer says

 

Pager blasts show Israel can tamper with Hezbollah’s supply chains, former CIA officer says

According to former CIA operative Robert Baer, who spoke with CNN, "it's typically not easy for anyone" to meddle with Hezbollah's logistics systems, as demonstrated by the devastating series of pager blasts that have rocked Lebanon.

For instance, according to Baer, 10 to 15 grams of the explosive substance RDX are needed to "do real damage and kill people."

Israel "has gotten in the middle" and rigged the pagers with explosives, according to the extent of the damage on Tuesday, which resulted in nine fatalities and over 2,800 injuries. 

“A tiny detonator can be inserted inside a pager or cell phone, along with explosives, and the connection should be encrypted. Baer informed CNN's Lynda Kinkade, "So a code is sent and it de-encrypts, the detonators explode all at once."

Hezbollah has long emphasized stealth as a pillar of its military strategy, eschewing high-tech gadgets to ward off Israeli and US surveillance intrusion.

According to information obtained by CNN, Israel was responsible for the explosions as part of a coordinated effort including the Israeli military and espionage agency Mossad.

Hezbollah would suffer greatly from it, and Baer argued that no nation in the world—possibly not even the United States—could pull it off without a great deal of talent. 

Hospitals in Lebanon scramble to treat the spike in injuries brought on by the pager attack.

Hospitals in Lebanon scrambled to treat thousands of injured patients, many of them Hezbollah members, following a concerted strike on hundreds of the militant organization's pagers.

The attack on Tuesday resulted in at least 2,800 injuries and at least 9 fatalities.

According to state news agency NNA, Dr. Firass Abiad, the minister of public health, said reporters on Tuesday that roughly 200 of the injured needed surgery or admittance to intensive care units because to their grave conditions.  

He stated that the hands, eyes, face, and belly sustained the most of the damage, as reported by NNA.

Cameras captured the hectic scenes inside one of the hospitals as medical personnel treated dozens of guys who were bleeding and covered in bandages. As additional wounded were brought in, patients sprawled on the ground.

A large number of the injured seems to have suffered facial and/or limb injuries.

According to NNA, Abiad made two separate hospital visits in the capital, Beirut, on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.  

According to NNA, he stated during the visit on Tuesday that the Healthy Ministry has begun sending injured patients to hospitals outside of the city and its southern suburbs.

The American University of Beirut Medical Center said that it was fully booked with over 190 patients.

AUBMC stated, "Transfers cannot be accommodated until further notice for patient safety."

Utilized hospital pagers: Furthermore, the medical facility denied "rumors and conspiracy theories" that circulated online and claimed it had altered its paging system prior to the attack.

In an attempt to connect AUB with this tragic incident, a number of hostile social media outlets have begun disseminating rumors and conspiracy theories about the kinds of communications systems AUB has in place, just as AUBMC doctors, nurses, and staff members have been fully mobilized to deal with the aftermath of today's injuries. According to their statement, the university "categorically denies these baseless allegations."  

/span>

AUBMC added that its paging system had been upgraded in April 2024 and began operating on August 29, 2024. 

Lethal pager attacks highlight a critical flaw in Hezbollah's military doctrine. What we know is as follows:

Tuesday's almost simultaneous explosion of hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon was a unique attack that, in terms of both magnitude and execution, surpassed a number of recent covert killings and cyberattacks in the region.

The wireless devices exploded at approximately 3:30 p.m. local time, according to the terrorist organization backed by Iran, as part of a deliberate Israeli attack on its agents.

About 2,800 people were injured in the attack, and nine people—including an 8-year-old child—died. 

According to information obtained by CNN, the strike was orchestrated by Israel and involved the Israeli military as well as the spy agency Mossad. The strike was denounced by the Lebanese government as "criminal Israeli aggression."

Since the beginning of the conflict with Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza last year, Israel's military has been involved in tit-for-tat strikes with Hezbollah. As a result, the IDF has declined to publicly comment on the explosions.

According to a Lebanese security source who spoke to CNN, Hezbollah had recently purchased the brand-new pagers that exploded. 

Why did the pagers blow up? On Tuesday, the New York Times revealed that Israel had concealed explosives within a shipment of pagers that were ordered from Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company, and were headed for Hezbollah. It further said that a switch was embedded to remotely destroy them.

What is the intention behind these attacks? According to CNN's Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller, "We can reach you anywhere, anytime, at the day and moment of our choosing and we can do it at the press of a button" is at least partially the unambiguous message to Hezbollah. 

Pagers were created by who? Gold Apollo said that a European distributor had produced the pagers bearing the company's brand. A top Taiwanese security official told CNN that Taiwan has no records of Gold Apollo pagers being exported to Lebanon or the Middle East.