Israeli intelligence service Mossad began inserting mined and wiretapped radios into Hezbollah back in 2015 and for nine years has been using the devices to monitor the movement's communications, the officials told the media.
The pager sales pitch was proposed to Hezbollah by a trusted marketing official with links to Taiwanese Apollo company, who had established her own company and gained a license to sell a line of Apollo devices, the sources said, adding that sometime in 2023, she offered the movement a deal on procuring AR924 pagers.
In 2023, Hezbollah began importing small AR924 pagers from Apollo, which were actually produced, assembled and equipped with a powerful explosive by the third company in Israel at Mossad’s orders, the media reported.
The Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah members could have disassembled the devices to check their safety, but the explosives were well-hidden and not discovered.
A series of electronic device explosions rocked Lebanon from September 17-18, killing 37 people and injuring over 3,000 others. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attack. The Israeli authorities have neither confirmed nor denied their role in the explosions.