Israeli intelligence services have been contemplating an operation along the lines of this week’s mass explosions of Hezbollah electronic devices for at least 15 years, a US intelligence source has told ABC News.
Thousands of people were injured in Lebanon by a series of blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday, when pagers, walkie-talkies, and other devices used by the militant group exploded simultaneously. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the incident, although media reports have widely described it as a Mossad plot that involved rigging the gadgets with remotely-triggered explosive charges.
Speaking to ABC News, a US source called it a “supply chain interdiction,” adding that the CIA has long been reluctant to employ similar tactics due to the risk of collateral damage. In Lebanon, children were among the dozens of people killed in the attack, which also left many victims mutilated.
The New York Times previously reported that the supply of sabotaged devices started in the summer of 2023, citing multiple officials familiar with the operation.
The ABC News report suggests that BAC Consulting, a Hungarian-based firm subcontracted by Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Gold Apollo to produce pagers for Hezbollah, is an Israeli front.
The devices were never in Hungary and BAC was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site” in the country, a spokesperson for the government in Budapest told the outlet.
The Taiwanese administration has also distanced the self-ruled Chinese island from the wave of violence in Lebanon.
“The components are [mainly] low-end IC [integrated circuits] and batteries,” Economy Minister Kuo Jyh-huei told reporters on Friday, as quoted by Reuters. “I can say with certainty they were not made in Taiwan.”
Beirut and the Hezbollah leadership have blamed Israel for the incident and have declared that Lebanon is now in a state of war with its neighbor.
The Israel Defense Forces intensified cross-border fire into Lebanon on Thursday, in what observers fear may be a prelude for a major ground invasion. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday announced a “new phase in the war” with the militant movement. An Israeli commando division previously involved in military action in Gaza has moved to the north amid the sharpening tensions.
Israel launched a large-scale military operation in Lebanon in 1982 – leading to a three-year partial occupation and the rise of Hezbollah as a prominent military and political force – and again in 2006, in what turned out to be a month-long incursion.