Hezbollah pager explosions

magicbastarder

This is quite a story - I've yet to see any speculation on how it was pulled off. Did they manage to trigger explosions in 'normal' pagers or did they manage to get rigged pagers to this many Hezbollah members?

https://twitter.com/timourazhari/status/1836036228547825885

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/17/hundreds-of-hezbollah-members-hurt-in-lebanon-after-pagers-explode?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Jim_Hodge

Saw this on the news. Nobody is even speculating how it could have been done. Seems bizarre.

taratee

That's a serious medium to long term strategy. Make them stop using smart phones, secretly supply them with exploding pagers, call them all at the same time months/years later. Watching some of the videos, they seem to be designed for very small local explosions, with people standing a foot away looking confused. Wonder who came up with this? Some are suggesting it was Mossad. Incredible act of sabotage, with little damage to anyone or anything else in the vicinity. Genius stuff.

Quitelife

Israel will kill us all for a finish up - horrible evil nation of bullies

Xxx

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625912#Comment_122625912

raises the question - why now? why not six months ago, say?

TheRepentent

Didn't even know pagers were still a thing. Everyday is a school day I guess.

Deebles McBeebles

Laser disc players could be next.

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625934#Comment_122625934

https://www.rte.ie/news/middle-east/2024/0917/1470395-middle-east/

"Yesterday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expanded the country's goals for the war in Gaza, vowing to allow Israelis who fled areas near the Lebanon border to return to their homes." - that's why.

Dohnjoe

Extraordinary. A lot of speculation going on, perhaps devices developed with X grams of RDX inside.

Edit: Up to an estimated thousand Hezbollah members affected now, with some deaths.

taratee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625934#Comment_122625934

Just reading up about it a little more. Hard to gauge but I think it's just a case of coverage. It takes time to coordinate something like this. You want to target as many terrorists as possible but you can't wait indefinitely. Hezbollah will be rocked by this. How would they coordinate any defence? Imagine this leaves them pretty vulnerable to further attacks now, which is fantastic news.

Brussels Sprout

If you know you know

magicbastarder

from the guardian: '(Hezbollah) believe the attack was in response to the alleged assassination attempt by Hezbollah on a former top Israeli defence official, revealed on Tuesday by the Israeli Shin Bet security agency."

also could be that mossad realised the doctored pagers (if they were indeed doctored) were on the cusp of being discovered? that's pure spitballing though.

Randycove

this is proper James Bond stuff. Q would be so proud.

Kind of reminds me of the plot in the first Kingsman with the exploding heads.

plodder

Crazy stuff. You'd roll your eyes if it were in a James Bond movie. Presumably, the pagers had to be modified. It's ironic that criminals and terrorists are loathe to use off the shelf tech because they assume the authorities will be spying on them. Wasn't there some kind of similar (but non exploding) sting recently on big criminal gangs in Europe and the US who were caught because the customised equipment they thought was secure had been compromised, probably in a similar way to this ruse? Probably in both cases the equipment had to be physically modified by some country's security services before being supplied to the users. Something like this would have to be planned years in advance though, you'd think.

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626070#Comment_122626070

"Presumably, the pagers had to be modified." It just might be possible to do something to make the battery explode.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625914#Comment_122625914

No they won't

taratee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625946#Comment_122625946

They were told to use them instead of phones. Hassan Nasrallah (Hezbollah leader) previously warned the group's members not to carry mobile phones, alleging Israel could use them to track their movements. Guessing that is reason why they are using pagers.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626087#Comment_122626087

I am far from an expert on these things, just went on a quick Google. The primary causes listed for an explosion are physical damage or overcharging. I suspect they'd be far more likely to catch fire than explode, but the media is talking just about explosions.

weisses

Im calling it

TheValeyard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626104#Comment_122626104

Would that not be for mobiles though? Do pagers have the same kind of batteries even, since they're an older tech?

Absolutely mad tactic. Very out of the box thinking.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626087#Comment_122626087

Who knows for sure, but it seems unlikely to me. Even when lithium batteries go on fire, they are designed to contain the remnants rather than explode afaik.

TheValeyard

Some people are very quick

magicbastarder

I assume if the pagers themselves are new, they'd have modern batteries. If they're particularly old, that might imply that mossad hatched this plan many years ago and only hit the big red button now?

Worth noting that from the video or two I've seen, they exploded within seconds of being paged - sounds far too quick to let heat build or batteries to overload?

magicbastarder

Latest from the guardian, the health minister in the Lebanon states that there are 8 dead and nearly 2.8k injured.

TheValeyard

Presuming there will be a significant response from Hezbollah at some stage

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625946#Comment_122625946

One-way communication, unlike mobile phones that can be used to guide missiles.

Also, hahahaha, fair play Mossad! Pure genius move.

II wouldn't discount the possibility that it was a technological hack to cause the batteries to overheat. I just rebooted my phone while it was charging and it got uncomfortably hot so I can see how you could possibly cause a runaway thermal reaction in a small device such as a pager or phone.

Astartes

This is much better than cluster bombing a crèche. Fair play

plodder

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was carrying one of them.

Amani’s wounds were “superficial”, state media are reporting, adding that he was “conscious and in no danger”.

TheValeyard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626178#Comment_122626178

This confirmed. Thought it was only a rumour? If he dies....

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626170#Comment_122626170

Again though, if the batteries overheated you might expect 95% to catch fire and 5% to explode (figures pulled out of thin air). And the explosions happened within seconds of the pagers being paged.

SchrodingersCat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626138#Comment_122626138

I’m very skeptical this is “heat buildup of batteries to overload” suggestion.
More likely it’s similar to what the FBI did with the drug dealer network in the US and Europe a year ago: become the supplier and give them the compromised communication hardware.

I’d say they modified them with explosives, probably hidden in the battery. They detonated them all simultaneously remotely.

Typical Li-ion battery “explosions” are glorified burnings. That video looks far more like a clean explosion.

The delay between it ringing and exploding is probably to make them more lethal: the unfortunate user will take it out of their pocket and look at it before it explodes.

Just saw this onTwitter so take it with a grain of salt but apparently pages belonging to others also exploded.

https://twitter.com/HadiNasrallah/status/1836064509061923253?t=AhjF1q5id6WbirRBO8coOA&s=09

If true then it leads credence to this being a new type of hack. Or they somehow distributed a large batch of ones with explosives

RoscommonHero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625912#Comment_122625912

Genius not the word I would use to kill a 10-year old girl but people like you chalk that down as "collateral damage".

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625912#Comment_122625912

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625912#Comment_122625912

They didn’t have smartphones in 8th century, so it’s only fitting we oblige them in their quest to regress

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626206#Comment_122626206

If you were to take the idea that the pagers were doctored, at face value, the whole supply chain in the Lebanon was probably flooded as they'd have little control over what pager was sold or supplied to what person. They may have just decided 'if you've a pager, you're a target' and hit a 'send to all' on them.

nacho libre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626006#Comment_122626006

I doubt it was in direct response to that, this would likely have taken months of planning to carry out. The Israeli also conducted a special forces raid against Syria's most sensitive military sites recently.

StevenToast

Jesus...the thoughts of some child playing with one of these pagers.. getting their hands and face blown off...

The Israelis just dont give a fùck....pure evil...

nacho libre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626153#Comment_122626153

The response will be another feeble one.

They are incapable of carrying out a like for like response. This incident along with several others over the last nine months have shown that. It demonstrates once again that there is no existential threat to Israel despite what some posters might suggest. The intent maybe there from its foes, but they are clearly no match for Israel militarily.

Astartes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626206#Comment_122626206

That tweet implies that "workers and doctor"s can't be members of a terrorist organisation. Play explodey games win explodey prizes

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626273#Comment_122626273

Are you mocking the deaths of health workers?

A new low for isr...

No, wait, business as usual for Israel supporters

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626170#Comment_122626170

Very unlikely for multiple reasons, mainly because the battery in a pager, if it's of that type that explode which probably isn't, it's too small to kill anyone directly.

Cluedo Monopoly

Strange development in hacking "warfare". All bets are off now. Israel is cementing decades of retaliation for the misery they are inflicting. For misery, read war crimes. A lasting peace will not happen in my lifetime.

magicbastarder

the guardian is now reporting that pagers in Syria also exploded - seven dead there reportedly.

Also:

The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources told Reuters.

timmyntc

US medics in Lebanon had been warned prior to not use those batch of pagers and to opt for another brand - huge intelligence failure that Hezbollah were not aware of this.

Also suggests it wasn't pagers specific to Hezbollah that were compromised, but a large batch of pagers to Lebanon.

Company are reportedly the Apollo Paging Company

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626284#Comment_122626284

I can't understand why people are so happy to take sides in this.

Israel has carried out a lot of horrific acts but Hezbollah and Hamas are a shower of scumbags as well.

The massacres carried out in Lebanon and the subsequent destruction of that society seem to be forgotten about by many.

I'm not justifying what happened today, but I certainly wouldn't be taking anything stated by Hezbollah at face value, nor would I be demonising Israel in isolation in a situation where none of the players are worthy of support or sympathy.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626319#Comment_122626319

where did you see that about the US medics?

Pedro K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626273#Comment_122626273

And the reported dead 10 year old, if found to be true?

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626351#Comment_122626351

https://www.thejournal.ie/dozens-hezbollah-members-injured-pagers-explode-lebanon-6490016-Sep2024/

The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in Lebanon’s east when his pager exploded, her family and a source close to the group said.

Then blame her terrorist daddy, not Israel.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626070#Comment_122626070

Yep, that was an FBI sting:

https://www.inc.com/jennifer-conrad/the-fbi-created-its-own-startup-and-used-it-to-stage-a-massive-sting-operation.html

Hugh Jeffries did a good… ehh, review 😁

https://youtu.be/EA1KS-xh0n0?si=aCjEFfH3pqGM7fGh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626104#Comment_122626104

Yep, they’ll generally catch fire rather than explode, but there was the publicity generated from the ‘exploding’ Samsung S7’s a few years ago, and that’s why, annoyingly but reasonably enough - An Post won’t allow you to send anything with batteries in it (normally lithium anyway) in the post. The ‘exploding’ pagers is likely more of the same thing. It’s not actually a coincidence, it has a cause, most likely Hezbollah’s procurement department has some explaining to do for purchasing poor quality products putting its suicide bombers at risk:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hezbollah-official-israel-behind-coordinated-attack-pagers-lithium-batteries-apparently-exploded/