My First Thought was, "Who the F%$# Still Uses Pagers?

Warning, graphic violence

It appears that Israel planted explosives in thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah and set them off today, killing at least 9 11 people, at least 8 of whom were senior Hezbollah operatives.

I do understand that Hezbollah chose to use pagers to maintain communications security, but this was largely undermined when, "Earlier in the year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the organization to stop using smartphones as these could be compromised and advised switching to pagers." 

Publicly announcing a change in communication protocols simply confirms a new attack surface for your adversaries:

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AR924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.

At 3:30 p.m. in Lebanon, the pagers received a message that appeared as though it was coming from Hezbollah’s leadership, two of the officials said. Instead, the message activated the explosives. Lebanon’s health minister told state media at least 11 people were killed and more than 2,700 injured.

I will note that this is an impressive bit of spy craft, and compared to the normal death toll from rockets or precision guided munitions, remarkably precise.

It also has the effect of completely disrupting Hezbollah communications for weeks, if not months.

………

The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding, according to three of the officials.

So the idea was that someone would have it in their hand when it went off.

I am impressed. 

A lot of moving parts all had to come together for this to happen.