Surgeons in Lebanon have exposed the litany of horrific injuries they have witnessed among the almost 3,000 people whose pagers exploded in a suspected Israeli attack on members of Hezbollah.
The pagers, believed to have been booby-trapped by Israel‘s Mossad spy agency prior to their delivery earlier this year, detonated yesterday after receiving a coded message.
The devices vibrated and beeped for several seconds prior to the explosion, a feature that experts say was likely designed by the aggressor to ensure the owner was holding the device so as to cause maximum damage.
Dozens of targets sustained severe facial injuries, with doctors explaining how they were forced to cut out victims’ eyeballs. Others had their hands blown off, or suffered gaping wounds in their abdomen had they concealed the pager on their hip.
Professor Elias Warrak, an ophthalmologist at Mount Lebanon University Hospital in Beirut, told the BBC he had never had to remove so many eyes in his 25-year-career, describing the experience as a ‘nightmare’.
‘Most of the patients were young men in their twenties and in some cases I had to remove both eyes,’ he said, adding that he operated until 4am Wednesday morning and still had more patients to treat when he returned a few hours later.
At least 12 people are confirmed dead, including at least two children – one girl aged eight and an 11-year-old boy – according to Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad.
Eye surgeon and Lebanese member of parliament Elias Jrade
At least 12 people are confirmed dead, including at least two children – one girl aged eight and an 11-year-old boy – according to Firas Abiad, who broke down in tears
Thousands were injured when pagers across Syria and Lebanon exploded on Tuesday
Hospitals across Lebanon were overrun with patients yesterday after thousands of Hezbollah operatives had their pagers blown up simultaneously
Eye surgeon and Lebanese member of parliament Elias Jrade, performs an eye operation on an injured man, following pager detonations across Lebanon, at a hospital in Beirut, Lebanon September 18, 2024
An injured man undergoes an operation, following pager detonations across Lebanon, at a hospital in Beirut, Lebanon September 18, 2024
This blurry screenshot taken from a video shows a man with a severely damaged arm and a bloodied face being hauled into hospital
Doctors rush to treat patients after they sustained severe injuries from the exploding pagers
Relatives mourn a young girl among those killed in the pager explosions
People attend the funeral ceremony held for Fatima Abdullah, who died in a pager explosion, at Saraain Al Faouqa district of Beqaa, Lebanon on September 18, 2024
Journalists were not allowed to enter hospital rooms or film patients in the wake of the attacks.
But a torrent of images and footage shared to social media by onlookers showed all manner of grievous injuries.
One particular video showed a man with a bloodied face clutching what was left of his arm – a jagged, crimson stump – as he wailed in a hospital bed.
The lens then swung around to capture another individual with a gaping hole in his stomach and huge lacerations along the top of his thigh with blood spilling onto the white floor below.
Other clips taken on the streets of Beirut captured the chaos that broke out as people were cut down seemingly at random by powerful explosives.
Some were seen crumpled on the floor in pools of their own blood as confused and horrified bystanders stood over them.
And one unsettling image showed trails of blood snaking down the side of a car door after its occupant was blown apart as he sat inside.
Health Minister Abiad said the wounded had been sent to various hospitals to avoid any single facility being overloaded and added that Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt offered to help treat the patients, given the number of casualties.
One young girl, named as Fatima Abdullah, was killed when she picked up the beeping pager with the intention of giving it to her father.
Tragic scenes showed crowds gathering for her funeral, holding her flower-adorned coffin aloft before laying her to rest earlier today.
A person is carried on a stretcher outside American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) as people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded and killed when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, according to a security source, in Beirut, Lebanon September 17, 2024
People attend the funeral ceremony held for Fatima Abdullah, who died in a pager explosion, at Saraain Al Faouqa district of Beqaa, Lebanon on September 18, 2024
A police officer inspects a car in which a hand-held pager exploded, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024
Pagers used by Hezbollah members for vital communications exploded yesterday, injuring thousands
A hand shows the destroyed pager or paging device that exploded on September 17, 2024
The crippling security breach is believed to be the result of a shady operation stretching from Hungary to Taiwan that was masterminded by Israel‘s foreign spy agency.
It is alleged that Mossad, working in collaboration with elements of Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF), managed to infiltrate the supply chain and plant a small quantity of high explosives inside the communication devices before they were delivered to Lebanon some time this spring.
These rigged devices were subsequently distributed to thousands of unsuspecting members across the political, military, operational and medical branches of Hezbollah before they were eventually detonated on Tuesday afternoon.
Officials in Jerusalem have thus far declined to comment on the incident, but Hezbollah has placed the blame squarely on Israel and has vowed to punish it.
An American official speaking on condition of anonymity said Israel briefed the United States on Tuesday after the attack, but gave no more details.
Meanwhile, a slew of security sources, regional analysts and munitions experts concur that Mossad and the IDF are the only entities capable of pulling off such an operation.
Just one day after Hamas‘ October 7 attacks that triggered the war in Gaza, Lebanon’s Hezbollah entered the fray in support of its ally and began trading strikes with Israel along their shared border.
Since then, hundreds of the group’s operatives have been killed in targeted Israeli strikes on Lebanon, including several senior commander and a top Hamas official in Beirut.
Fearing that the phones used by Hezbollah members to communicate presented a massive security risk, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in February declared the devices were ‘more dangerous than Israeli spies’ and his officials began drawing up plans to address gaps in the group’s intelligence infrastructure.
In a televised speech on February 13, Nasrallah sternly ordered his followers and supporters to break, bury or lock their phones in an iron box.
The group opted to replace the phones its members had previously used to communicate with pagers – one way receivers that are more secure than smartphones and do not operate on the same network.
They also have an extremely long battery life, with some models able to last up to three months on one charge – a key advantage given Lebanon’s economic crisis and unreliable electricity supply.
Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in February declared phones were ‘more dangerous than Israeli spies’ and ordered followers to break, bury or lock them away
A hand shows the destroyed pager or paging device that exploded on September 17, 2024
A Lebanese security source confirmed to Reuters that Hezbollah placed an order for thousands of pagers in February with a Taiwan-based company called Gold Apollo.
The AR-924 pager ordered by Hezbollah is advertised a ‘rugged’ device allowing users to securely communicate in messages of 100 characters.
But Gold Apollo said in a statement on Wednesday that it did not manufacture the devices delivered to Lebanon, claiming instead they were manufactured by in Budapest, Hungary, by another entity called BAC Consulting Kft under a brand licensing deal.
Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said: ‘The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,’ with an official statement from the company adding: ‘Apollo Gold Corporation has established a long-term private label authorisation and regional agency cooperation with BAC… but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC.’
An executive of BAC Consulting Kft confirmed to NBC in a phonecall that the company worked with Gold Apollo but said ‘I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediary’, before hanging up.
This is where the trail has gone cold – for now.
The limited liability company was registered in May 2022, with records showing it had revenue of $725,768 in 2022 and $593,972 in 2023.
Reporters located the registered address of BAC Consulting in Budapest, but a person at the building speaking on condition of anonymity said the company did not have a physical presence there.
Early speculation in the wake of the blasts suggested an Israeli hack could have overloaded the lithium ion batteries powering the pagers, which can burn up to 590 degrees celsius (1,100 F) when ignited.
But munitions experts reviewing examples of the blasts caught by security cameras determined the pagers were detonated by an explosive charge, given the sudden and uniform nature of the explosions and the kind of injuries sustained by the victims.
A former British Army bomb disposal officer explained that an explosive device has five main components: A container, a battery, a triggering device, a detonator and an explosive charge.
‘A pager has three of those already,’ explained the ex-officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he now works as a consultant with clients on the Middle East.
‘You would only need to add the detonator and the charge.’
‘Looking at the video, the size of the detonation is similar to that caused by an electric detonator alone or one that incorporates an extremely small, high-explosive charge,’ said Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert.
