- Thousands of electronic devices used by Hezbollah fighters detonated across Lebanon last month.
- Israel has not confirmed its involvement in the attack, but it is widely believed to have been behind it.
- A new report has detailed a dark feature that made some of the devices even more gruesome.
Thousands of electronic devices exploded across Lebanon last month, leaving dozens dead and thousands injured.
The attacks targeted pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
A new report by The Washington Post now says the pagers were fitted with a dark feature that made them even more gruesome than previously thought — a two-step de-encryption procedure that meant most users would be holding the device with both hands when it went off.
While Israel has not confirmed involvement in the attack, it is widely believed to have been carried out by its Mossad intelligence service.
According to the Post, Mossad was able to trigger the explosions remotely, but it had also added a special procedure for users to read encrypted messages that could also detonate the devices.
“You had to push two buttons to read the message,” an unnamed official told the outlet, adding that users would therefore likely “wound both their hands” and “would be incapable to fight.”
Citing Israeli, US, and Middle Eastern officials, the Post reported that up to 3,000 members of Hezbollah were injured or killed by the explosions.
Hezbollah had seemingly switched from using cellphones to more low-tech pagers just months before the detonations.
Sources familiar with Hezbollah told Reuters in July that the group had banned cellphones from the battlefield to try to stay ahead of Israeli intelligence capabilities.
Former spies previously told Business Insider that the operation suggested a calculated, textbookly executed covert operation.
“We are looking at something that has been a very carefully, very thoroughly, well-calculated, meticulously tailored process,” Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official, said.
Emirates airline has since banned passengers from carrying pagers and walkie-talkies on flights.
In a statement, the carrier said: “All Passengers travelling on flights to, from or via Dubai are prohibited from transporting pagers and walkie talkies in checked or cabin baggage.”
The airline also said it had canceled flights to and from Beirut until after October 15.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging strikes since last October, after Hamas’ October 7 attacks on the Jewish state.
Israel has ramped up attacks on senior Hezbollah figures in recent weeks.
Last week, the IDF announced it had killed the group’s leader of 32 years, Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike on Beirut.
Nasrallah’s death prompted a major retaliatory missile strike from Iran and has spread fears of a wider conflict in the region.
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