Gold Apollo He said on Wednesday that the beepers were manufactured by the BAC Consultingof Hungarywith which it had a cooperation agreement.
“We authorize BAC to use our brand for the sale of products in certain regions, but the design and manufacture of the products is the sole responsibility of BAC”said Gold Apollo in a statement.
A man watches a video showing an injured man on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit several Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon. (Photo by JOSEPH EID / AFP)
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The president of the Hungarian company, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, told the American channel NBC that it works with Gold Apollo, but denied being involved in the manufacture of the beepers.
“I don’t make pagers. I’m just a middleman. You’re wrong.”he said.
On Wednesday, a new wave of explosions was recorded, this time involving walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, leaving numerous people dead and wounded.
The devices exploded simultaneously in the southern suburb of Beirutwhere the funerals of four members of Hezbollah dead the day before due to the explosion beepers.
Here’s what we know about the attacks attributed to Israel:
Why does Hezbollah use old-fashioned beepers?
The beeper. (AFP).
The beeper They are low-tech communication devices that proliferated between the 1980s and 1990s, until the appearance of cell phones condemned them to near extinction. According to the website of the American company Spokwhich specializes in this product, had 61 million of these devices in circulation in 1994.
He beeper allows you to receive short text messages via radio signals. They do not use mobile phone networks or the Internet, so communications cannot be intercepted. They also do not present communication problems.
Hezbollah the used to prevent its members from being geolocated by Israelwhich routinely carries out targeted killings of members of the Shiite militia.
Experts believe that Hezbollah He began using these devices more frequently since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7.
Reuters reported last May that Hezbollah is using outdated technologies to counter Israel’s advanced spying capabilities.
“The phone we have in our hands – I don’t have a phone in my hand – is a listening device,” Hezbollah chief warned in February this year. Hassan Nasrallah.
The leader of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, delivers a televised speech, on January 5, 2024. (Photo by Al-Manar / AFP)
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Kim Ghattasa Lebanese journalist and contributing writer to The Atlantic magazine, confirmed to CNN that she recently Hezbollah lowered the level of technology it used with the aim of preventing more of its members from being killed by Israel.
“It was clearly an Israeli-directed attack against Hezbollah operatives. who had recently adopted less sophisticated technologies, because they have been the target of assassinations over the past 10 months. They had been instructed to get rid of their iPhonesdisconnect from the Internet and turn off their security cameras,” said Ghattas.
The model that exploded is believed to be the AR924. According to the manufacturer’s official website, this allows for “reliable communication in the most hostile environments. Designed for professionals working in industrial, construction or emergency situations, this pager either beeper robust is prepared to withstand extreme conditions without losing functionality.”
Did Israel place explosives in Hezbollah’s beepers?
The beeper of a Hezbollah member that exploded in Lebanon. (Social media).
Citing anonymous sources, the American newspaper The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Israel placed explosives in a lot beepers manufactured in Taiwan by the company Gold Apollo and that were sold to HezbollahA switch was embedded next to the battery to detonate them remotely, he added.
The NYT said that Hezbollah ordered about 3,000 devices from Gold ApolloBut these were manipulated by Israel before reaching Lebanon, officials from the United States and other countries told the newspaper.
A source told The Wall Street Journal that the affected devices came from a shipment that Hezbollah had received in recent days.
While Reuters reported, citing a Lebanese security source, that Mossad had placed the explosives in 5,000 devices ordered from Taiwan several months ago, 3,000 of which exploded on Tuesday.
The New York Times detailed that the beeper They simultaneously received a message that appeared to come from the top of Hezbollah, but in reality it served to detonate the explosives.
The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before the explosion, the NYT said.
Elijah J. Magniera Brussels-based political risk analyst, said he had spoken to members of Hezbollah who examined the beeper that did not explode. He added that the devices were first presented with what appeared to be an error message that caused them to vibrate, forcing the user to click buttons to stop the vibration. This detonated a small amount of explosives hidden inside.
Magnier added that the beepers of Hezbollah “They were not imported directly into Lebanon, but were detained in a nearby country for three months, where “Israel planted the explosive.”
Israel He has not commented on what happened, as is usual with this type of actions attributed to him.
Opinion…
Is this the prelude to an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah?
Carlos Novoa Shuña
International analyst specializing in the Middle East
The Israeli Armed Forces needed a coup of this nature to restore their confidence and credibility, especially among their citizens internally. It is also a clear message to the outside world, to their external enemies. They want to make it clear that Israel is capable of anything, something they have always made known.
In other words, Israel wants to reaffirm that its technology, its intelligence and its scientists are capable of achieving any type of situation that allows them to access such a sophisticated level of technological penetration as to carry out these remote-controlled attacks.
As for the consequences, I do not think that this action will lead to a full-scale war with Hezbollah. Israel is careful in its actions. For example, it attacked Iran in a calculated manner. It is not in Israel’s interest to open another front in the north with Hezbollah because its forces are concentrated in the south, in the war in Gaza.
Furthermore, Israel is suffering from internal wear and tear due to the number of movements of its armed forces and reserves. The latter are made up of people who lead an ordinary life because they have already done their military service, but they have to respond to the call; so they leave their family life to go to the front and many lose their lives. So this has a greater direct impact.
On the Hezbollah side, I think it does have the capacity to respond proportionally, because we are in a technological war and this Shiite militia is a satellite of Iran. Through this regional power it could respond. Israel knows this and will certainly reinforce its security.
While it is true that Israel has far superior technological advancement, nothing can be ruled out on the part of Hezbollah and Iran because in this scenario the black market for scientists who are in the international arena already comes into play.
What about overheating of the batteries?
An ambulance transports injured people to a hospital in Beirut on September 17, 2024, after explosions occurred in several Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
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The chain CNN spoke to experts who pointed out that the most likely cause of the explosions would be a beeper hardware manipulationrather than intentional overheating of lithium batteries.
David Kennedy, a former intelligence analyst for the US National Security Agency (NSA), told CNN that The explosions seen in the videos circulating on social media appear “too large to be a direct, remote hack that would overload the locator” and would cause an explosion of the lithium battery.”
Justin Cappos, a cybersecurity professor at New York University, told CNN that it is possible to cause damage to lithium batteries. However, he believes that the “devices were intentionally designed to explode when activated.”
Baptiste Robert, a cybersecurity researcher and CEO of Predicta Lab, told CNN that rather than being hacked, The beepers were probably modified before shipment.. He said that the magnitude of the explosion seems to show that it is a coordinated and sophisticated attack.
“It is more likely that Israel have human operatives… in Hezbollah…The pagers would have been implanted with explosives and would likely only detonate when a certain message was received. The complexity required to pull this off is incredible. It would have required many different intelligence and execution components. Human intelligence would be the main method used to carry it out, along with the interception of the supply chain to make modifications to the locators.“Kennedy told CNN.
What type of explosive was used?
An injured person whose mobile phone exploded arrives at al-Zahraa hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (Photo: Hussein Malla / AP)
According to the New York Times report, The small explosive implanted in the beepers weighed between 28 and 56 grams.
Sky News Arabic reported that Mossad placed “the PETN explosive in the batteries of the devices.” Also known as PentryteIt is a high-powered explosive that is more sensitive to shock or friction than others such as TNT or Tetryl.
PETN has an approximate detonation velocity of 8,500 meters per second.
