October 7th, 2023 Hamas, a Palestinian militant terrorist group, attacked Israel killing 1,139 and taking 251 captive. Since then, the Israel-Hamas war has continued to impact the Middle East. Tuesday, September 17th thousands of pagers exploded across Lebanon injuring thousands with many casualties. The next day on the 18th walkie talkies exploded causing thousands of more devastating injuries. Israel Foreign Intelligence Agency carried out these attacks to target Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant terrorist group, taking their grim fight with the Hamas from down in Gaza up North to the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The pagers, model AR-924, were put into use in fear of Israel tracking Hezbollah phones. Around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday pagers across Lebanon exploded causing the death of twelve, including two children, and injuring thousands. Hezbollah responded to this tragic event saying “We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” adding that Israel will “for sure get its just punishment.”
The pagers were originally thought to have come from Gold Apollo, but when speaking to the founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, he states, “You look at pictures from Lebanon. They don’t have any mark saying “Made in Taiwan” on them, we did not make those pagers!” leading to the involvement of a Hungarian-based company, BAC Consulting KFT, who leased the pager design.
When looking into the company BBC found many holes regarding the background information of BAC. The address was linked to 12 different companies, and payments to Gold Apollo had been very sketchy with the money coming from the Middle East.
The supposed owner, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, claimed that “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate” in which it is later found out that BAC Consulting KFT was just a shell company, or a “front”, for Israeli intelligence to manufacture their deadly, digital weapon.
The next day while the whole of Lebanon was still distressed from the first attack, a second wave of exploding walkie talkies killed twenty more and injured hundreds. The walkie talkies, model IC-V82, were thought to come from ICOM, a Japanese manufacturer of wireless communications devices. After speaking with a sales executive we learn that it is very easy to find counterfeit products across the media and that the exact model of pagers that exploded had appeared to be fake. ICOM also stated that this model of pagers had been discontinued 10 years ago with the batteries being discontinued as well, while Hezbollah had barely acquired theirs a couple months before the explosion.
These attacks have spun into a nonstop frenzy of back and forth attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, with Israel taking the lead in attacks by bombarbing Lebanon. Israel issued a critical warning to Lebanon citizens to evacuate, but still many are stuck in their homes unable to seek refuge and others ending up injured or dead. The U.S. has attempted to ask for a ceasefire and are trying to push a second time for one after being rejected the first time. In more recent information, Israel has begun striking Hezbollah banks, hitting their finances hard.
