An invisible detonator and wafer-thin plastic explosives turned batteries into bombs

BEIRUT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - 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.

To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product - they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.

The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel’s Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war.

  • NoForwardslashSEnglish
    456·
    3 months ago

    I wonder if the coverage of these pager attacks would be quite so complimentary on their ingenuity if it struck targets in Europe, with >25% civilian collateral, including aid-workers, children and members of neighbouring countries.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      203·
      3 months ago

      They’re advertising war crimes. Doesn’t matter who was bombed, really.

      Lock em up.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        121·
        2 months ago

        I do. It was very clever and they achieved every long-term strategic goal of the attacks, short of the destruction of the US (which may well be pending).

        But yes, I get your point, Westerner lives are special and sacred, because history is only still happening in other places. When we die all logic must shut off.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      65·
      3 months ago

      >25% civilian collateral

      Is there a source on this? The initial coverage made it sound like it was maybe 10%.

      • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        91·
        3 months ago

        Are you counting injuries or just deaths?

        As of 22 September 2024, the death toll from the attacks was 42, including at least 12 civilian deaths. More than 3,500 people were injured.

        At least 12 people were killed in the first wave of attacks, including civilians such as two health workers, a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. The adult son of Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah member of Parliament was killed; Prime Minister Najib Mikati visited southern Beirut to pay his respects. More than 2,750 people were wounded. In the second wave on 18 September, at least 30 people were killed and 750 others were injured. One eye doctor at Mount Lebanon University Hospital reported that a number of those injured showed signs of something being blown up directly in their face, with some losing one or both eyes, while others had shrapnel in their brains. The Lebanese health ministry reported that 300 people had lost both eyes and 500 people had lost one eye as a result of the pager attacks. Other doctors saw severe hand, waist and facial injuries, reporting patients with fingers torn, hands amputated, eyes popped out of the socket and facial lacerations.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          4·
          2 months ago

          Thanks! I was thinking of injured, clearly.

          Interesting that by deaths, civilians are a much larger share. It makes sense in that it would take less to blow up a kid, so in the rare cases they were handling the top-secret Hezbollah pager it was more likely to be fatal. (Welcome to war, where kids are reduced to a physics problem)

          I’m still not sure why this is the one people are hung up on, when there’s a plethora of clear-cut IDF warcrimes to choose from.

          • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldEnglish
            32·
            2 months ago

            I think it’s only because the US State Department praised the operation as legitimate and completely downplayed the reality of the casualties, instead of acknowledging it for the mass terrorism that it was. Not at all surprising for those who know how routinely the State Dept lies about the realities of US and US-backed warfare, but many people in the West still ran with it thanks to the coverage by US Media that shares that sentiment with the State Dept.

            It’s really nothing new for anyone aware of how many war crimes the IDF commits daily, just another form and against a different resistance group