The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) was behind a critical operation shortly after Israel reportedly used weaponized pagers to kill or injure members of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Details of the 2024 operation revealed by the Sabah newspaper one year later show 1,300 pager devices and 710 chargers rigged with explosives were seized inside a cargo at Istanbul Airport en route to Lebanon from Hong Kong.
Last September, Israel orchestrated a series of explosions involving wireless communication devices, including pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Hezbollah group, killing at least 51 people and injuring nearly 3,000 others.
In a rare acknowledgement of the agency’s covert operations, Israel’s spy chief declared in February that “the pager operation” against Hezbollah “turned the tables” on the group in its war with Israel. “This operation marked a turning point in the north, during which we turned the tables on our enemies,” said David Barnea, head of Mossad, speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv. “A direct line can be drawn from the pager operation to the elimination of (Hassan) Nasrallah and the cease-fire agreement. Hezbollah suffered a devastating blow that shattered the organization’s spirit,” he added, referring to Israel’s assassination of the Hezbollah leader.
The bombs detonated all across Lebanon, including in shops and homes, and were called a violation of international law by the United Nations’ human rights chief Volker Turk. Just days later, on Sept. 27, Israel assassinated Nasrallah in a massive airstrike on southern Beirut, which was swiftly followed by an Israeli ground offensive against Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon. By late November, Israel and Hezbollah reached a cease-fire agreement, bringing more than a year of hostilities to an end.
In a rare disclosure of Mossad’s tactics, Barnea provided in February new details of the pager operation. Saying his agency had “devised an unconventional method to strike,” Barnea revealed that the groundwork for the operation began in 2022, with the first shipment of 500 pagers reaching Lebanon weeks before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. “When the operation was finally launched, 10 times that number of beepers were detonated than we had in the start of the war and twice the amount of radios,” he stated, adding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally approved the mission. “The day thousands of pagers exploded in the hands of Hezbollah operatives will be remembered as the moment that changed the course of the war,” Barnea declared. “It was a day when deception in warfare proved more powerful than brute force.”
In a symbolic gesture after the explosions, Netanyahu presented U.S. President Donald Trump with a golden pager, commemorating the operation’s impact on Hezbollah.
Mossad reportedly used devices manufactured by Taiwan-based Gold Apollo company, while the company denied links to the plot and initially stated that Hungary-based Bac Consulting KFT had permission to use its trademark. The company in Budapest was a front company for Mossad, according to media reports.
Hidden explosives
Upon intelligence that a shipment of pager devices would take place in Istanbul to be delivered to Lebanon two days after the attacks, MIT launched an operation. Authorities discovered a shipment that arrived in Istanbul from Hong Kong one day before the Lebanon explosions. The cargo weighing 850 kilograms (1,873.93 pounds) had 61 boxes and was scheduled to depart from Istanbul to Beirut on Sept. 27, 2024, through Istanbul Airport. The cargo was delivered under the name of a shipment of food choppers. Inside, authorities found 1,300 Gold Apollo brand pagers and 710 Desktop Chargers. The Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office ordered the confiscation of the cargo, and the shipment was transferred to a crime lab for further analysis on suspicion of bomb equipment. The analysis revealed 3 grams of a white, unidentified explosive material placed inside each pager’s battery block, along with detonator fuses.
Experts discovered that the devices with explosives can be detonated remotely through signals or when overheated. Around the same time, authorities searched another cargo of pagers sent by the same company, but this time, to a different recipient in Lebanon and found no traces of explosives.
An analysis of the desktop charges and accompanying batteries also found a brown colored explosive material that was apparently “injected” into the body of the batteries while it was still in liquid metal form.
The Sabah report named Guangzhou Maoteng Yu as the source of the delivery and SMT Global Logistics Limited as the broker for the cargo in Türkiye before its delivery to Lebanon, to a company named Trade Mania LLC. The owner of a broker company based in Istanbul, whose name resembles SMT, was questioned but it was found that the company was not linked to the delivery.
The report said MIT’s operation topped the agenda of Lebanese premier Najib Miqati as he visited Türkiye on Dec. 18, 2024, and met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Miqati thanked Erdoğan for the operation, according to the Sabah report.
As the Palestinian-Israeli conflict rages on, Türkiye has uncovered several networks operated by Mossad in the country.
Dozens were detained or arrested on charges of having ties to Mossad and running espionage rings for Mossad operatives. Their primary targets have been Palestinians living in Türkiye or visiting the country, particularly those linked to Hamas.