In-depth | Why did thousands of pagers in Lebanon explode almost simultaneously? Explosion | Lebanon

On the afternoon of the 17th local time, pager explosions occurred in many places in Lebanon. As of press time, at least 12 people have been killed and about 2,800 people have been injured, including 300 seriously injured. Lebanon's Hezbollah accused Israel of launching the attack and vowed to "punish Israel."

Who produced these pagers and why did they explode at almost the same time? Why did Hezbollah in Lebanon use pagers on a large scale? Will this attack further escalate the already tense situation in the region? A series of questions have once again drawn attention to the Middle East.

At around 15:30 on the 17th, large-scale pager explosions occurred in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, lasting about an hour.

The surveillance footage circulated on the Internet showed that when a man was paying in a small supermarket, a pager next to the cash register suddenly exploded. Other witnesses said that some people's trouser pockets began to smoke, and then they fell to the ground in the explosion. An informed source said that before the explosion, the pager rang for a few seconds, which seemed to indicate that a message from a senior Hezbollah official had been received.

According to multiple sources, the explosion was not very powerful and mainly affected the person carrying the pager and those who were close to it. Most of the injured suffered injuries to the face, eyes and limbs. Among the confirmed dead, many were members of the Lebanese Hezbollah, and there were also two children.

The Iranian Embassy in Lebanon issued a statement on the 17th saying that Iranian Ambassador Mujtaba Amani was "slightly injured" in the pager explosion and was "generally in good condition." There were also reports that a similar explosion occurred in Syria, Lebanon's neighbor, injuring more than a dozen people.

At present, there are still many questions and speculations about this incident.

Question 1: Why did thousands of pagers explode almost at the same time?

According to Lebanese media reports, the batteries in the paging devices used by the injured Hezbollah members were detonated remotely.

According to analysts, there are two possibilities for the explosion: one is a cyber attack, in which software is used to invade the pager, causing its lithium battery to overheat and explode; the other is a "supply chain attack", that is, the pager is intercepted and explosives are installed before it arrives in Lebanon, or the explosives may be installed inside the pager during the production process. As for the former possibility, some technical experts questioned that lithium batteries alone may not be able to cause such a deadly explosion.

Question 2: When was the pager tampered with and how did it end up in the hands of Hezbollah members?

According to the comparison, these destroyed pagers are the same as a model produced by the Taiwanese company Golden Apollo, model number AP924. Public opinion generally believes that these pagers were tampered with before arriving in Lebanon.

In an interview with the media, the chairman of Golden Apollo said that these products were not produced in Taiwan, but were produced and sold by a European company called BAC, and they only provided brand trademark authorization.

According to some Lebanese officials, Hezbollah had previously ordered 5,000 pagers from the Golden Apollo brand to distribute to its members and its allies in Iran and Syria. It is said that the pager model that exploded was the latest model introduced by Hezbollah in recent months, and the Israeli side may have been planning for several months. However, some insiders also revealed that the batch of pagers that exploded only arrived in recent days.

Question 3: Why does Hezbollah still use pagers?

Pagers are low-tech information receivers that are usually not connected to the Internet. Hezbollah militants use pagers quite often because they have no GPS function, no microphone or camera, and limited information storage. This makes pagers difficult to monitor and track, and relatively more "safe."

After the outbreak of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict in October last year, Hezbollah in Lebanon frequently attacked military targets in northern Israel to support Hamas, and the Israeli army responded with air strikes and artillery bombardments. Since then, Hezbollah has asked its members to stop using mobile phones. In February this year, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah called for "turning off, burying and locking up" mobile phones because they are "accomplices" of the Israelis.

After the explosion, Hezbollah in Lebanon pointed the finger at Israel for the incident. The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned Israel for launching a "cyber attack" and said that Lebanon has decided to initiate a complaint procedure against Israel with the UN Security Council.

Israel did not respond to the Lebanese government and Hezbollah's claims. Israeli Chief of Staff Hezi Halevi held a meeting in the evening of the 17th to assess the situation and said Israel would "continue to remain vigilant."

Is Israel behind this? Some analysts believe that the planning and execution of this attack may take months or even years, and Israel is the only country that has the ability and motivation to carry out this action.

As early as 1996, Yahya Ayyash, a senior military commander of Hamas and known as the "engineer" for pioneering suicide bombings, was killed in an explosion after answering a mobile phone call. The incident was believed to be the work of the Israeli National Security Agency. From cyber attacks, suicide drone attacks to remotely triggered explosions, this series of operations are considered to be Israel's usual methods.

"In the past, Israel has used mobile phones and pagers to carry out targeted elimination. However, the practice of installing explosives on 5,000 pagers is still unprecedented," said Niu Xinchun, executive director of the Institute of China-Arab Countries at Ningxia University.

Niu Xinchun believes that if the attack was carried out by Israel, its primary purpose was to achieve the policy goal of "enabling residents in northern Israel to return to their homes."

Recently, Israel has been increasing its military pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon. This incident also occurred at a sensitive time when Israel issued a comprehensive threat to Hezbollah. On the evening of the 16th, the Israeli Security Cabinet passed a resolution to make "returning the people evacuated from northern Israel to their homes" the fourth military goal of the Israeli government since the Gaza conflict. This means that Israel has officially included the military strike against Hezbollah in its military strategy that has lasted for nearly a year.

"Although the adoption of this resolution is mainly symbolic, it once again highlights Israel's determination to resolve the issues with Hezbollah in Lebanon," said Niu Xinchun.

It is reported that the commander of the Israeli Northern Command, General Golding, is actively lobbying the cabinet decision-makers to approve a large-scale ground offensive against southern Lebanon. However, some analysts believe that the pager explosion is not a sign that Israel is about to launch a ground offensive, but is intended to deter its opponents.

Secondly, the attack dealt a heavy blow to Hezbollah’s effective forces. Since the beginning of this round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel has killed more than 400 Hezbollah members in exchanges of fire with the group, but this attack alone killed more than a dozen people and injured nearly 3,000.

In addition, the attack also destroyed an important means of communication between Hezbollah and its allies. Niu Xinchun said that Hezbollah, Hamas and other organizations are very cautious about using mobile phones, fearing that they will be targeted and killed by Israel. But now pagers are no longer safe, which poses a challenge to their communication.

There are also reports that Israel had received intelligence before the attack - Hezbollah members may have heard that the pagers had been tampered with. In order to take the initiative, Israel changed its plan and took action in advance.

There are widespread concerns that the explosion will further escalate tensions in the Middle East. Hezbollah has pledged to bring "fair punishment" to Israel.

Iran "strongly condemned" the explosion, while the United States distanced itself from the incident, saying it was not involved in the explosion and "did not know who was responsible for it."

Niu Xinchun believes that Hezbollah in Lebanon will inevitably retaliate against Israel, but how it will respond is still uncertain. In terms of military strength and intelligence capabilities, Hezbollah is still at a disadvantage compared to Israel.

As for whether Hezbollah's allies will take any action, Niu Xinchun believes that Iran, Syria and other parties may provide Hezbollah with some political, diplomatic, moral, weapons and technical support, but from the current perspective, the possibility of these parties taking joint action is still relatively small.

"The situation will remain tense for some time to come." Niu Xinchun said that in addition to the expected escalation of the situation in Lebanon and Israel in the near future, there are many other situations that need attention: if the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza cannot be reached, there may be a final showdown soon, and Hamas and Israel may enter the final decisive battle stage; the situation in the West Bank of the Jordan River is still turbulent, and if a full-scale uprising breaks out, the situation will get out of control; the Houthi armed forces in Yemen have limited ability to attack Israel's mainland, but they are also eyeing it covetously...

Public opinion generally believes that one of the keys to easing regional tensions is to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. However, the negotiations have been deadlocked for a long time. Although US Secretary of State Blinken visited Egypt again on the 17th to mediate, the outside world believes that this move has limited impact.

Niu Xinchun pointed out that since the Gaza conflict, Israel has relied too much on force, causing a large-scale humanitarian disaster and failing to completely solve the problem, which is something Israel needs to reflect on. However, recently, the Israeli army has won many victories, the prestige of the army and intelligence departments has recovered, Israel's confidence in its military capabilities is recovering, and the courage of military actions will become greater and greater.