Second Wave of Explosions Hits Communications Devices Across Lebanon

By Owen Evans

In a second day of exploding devices, hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated late Wednesday afternoon across southern Lebanon and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source and a witness told Reuters.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least nine people were killed and 300 were injured by the second wave of explosions.

At least one of the blasts occurred near a funeral organized by the Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day, when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country, wounding many members of the terrorist group.

Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV reported explosions in multiple areas of Lebanon, which it said were caused by detonating walkie-talkies.

The Epoch Times has not been able to independently corroborate these claims.

On Tuesday evening local time, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that some 2,800 people were injured in the pager blasts and eight more were killed, including a child. The National News Agency reported that most people injured in the mass pager explosions sustained injuries to their hands.

Among those reported killed on Tuesday was Mahdi Ammar, the son of a Hezbollah-affiliated member of the Lebanese Parliament named Ali Ammar.

Before the walkie-talkie explosion, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said that 12 people were killed and 3,000 were wounded in an unprecedented security breach.

On Tuesday, the Taiwanese pager manufacturer whose branding appeared on the remnants of beepers that exploded in Lebanon claimed they were manufactured by another company in Hungary.

The model of pagers used in the detonations in Lebanon was made by Budapest-based BAC Consulting, the Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo said.

The firm added that it had only licensed its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the explosions, but Israel has not yet publicly commented.

Yossi Kuperwasser, a former military intelligence official and now research director at the Israel Defense and Security Forum, told Reuters there was no confirmation that the military intelligence unit Mossad was involved in the attack.

The Epoch Times has reached out to BAC Consulting for comment.

At the moment, there are no facts and only speculation, about how and why the pagers exploded.

The two main theories initially put forward by experts were that the explosion was caused either by the battery, or by explosives. As more evidence emerges, the explosive theory has gained traction.

The theory suggests the pagers were intercepted at some point and small amounts of high explosives were inserted inside 3,000 of them, which were then triggered with a coded message.

Carlos Perez, director of security intelligence at TrustedSec, said, “the battery was probably half-explosive and half-actual battery.”

Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert, said, “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.”

Commenting on a video of the damage caused by one pager explosion, former CIA analyst Mike Dimino of the US-based Defense Priorities think tank wrote on X, “This was a small plastic explosive charge made to fit into one of the pager components. A battery isn’t doing this.”

Hezbollah has been turning to alternative communications technology over safety concerns with cellphones.

In February, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned his people not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to target them with drone strikes.

Around 170 Hezbollah terrorists had been killed in targeted Israeli strikes, including one senior commander and a top Hamas official in Beirut, when the decision was made to switch to pagers.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.