Hezbollah Exploding Pager Cyber-Attack Investigated
Reports are coming in from Lebanon and Syria of 9 people killed and 2,800 of Hezbollah fighters injured after their pagers exploded. Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad has said that 200 people have sustained critical injuries (2). Hezbollah have blamed Israel for the attack.
This is a wide scale attack on Hezbollah through their shadow communication infrastructure. A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the "biggest security breach" in nearly a year of conflict with Israel. Iran-backed Hezbollah, operating in Lebanon, has engaged Israel in cross-border warfare to support their ally Hamas in the Gaza war which erupted following Hamas’ incursion into Israel in October last year.
Although no group has officially claimed responsibility for the attack, all eyes will be on Israel’s national intelligence and special operations agency, Mossad, especially given the nature of the attack and the timing of Israel’s announcement a few hours before where they set a new war goal of returning 60,000 displaced residents to the north of Israel who had to be evacuated following increased threat by recent Hezbollah attacks across the border (4). Additionally, the attack follows the announcement from Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, that they foiled a recent attempt by Hezbollah to assassinate a former senior Israeli security official. Reports have also suggested that shortly before the explosions, there was a special meeting between Mossad Director David Barnea and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (5). Regarding previous responses to attacks on Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, it is unlikely that Israel will claim official responsibility, however given the geopolitical situation and scale of the attack it can be assumed with some certainty that they are involved.
A pager is a small electronic device used to receive text messages or notifications without needing an internet connection. It was commonly used in the 1990s and early 2000s as a primary means of communication before mobile phones became widely available. Pagers are valued for quick and reliable notifications making them ideal components of a military communication network which must not be reliant on an internet connection which otherwise may be blocked or intercepted by an enemy in a conflict.
The pagers that exploded were the latest model bought in by Hezbollah and deployed to fighters in recent months, with one source saying that they are part of a shipment of 5,000 pagers brought into Lebanon about 5 months ago. They were a new brand that Hezbollah had not used previously - labels seen on fragments of exploded devices indicate that the model is the Rugged Pager AR-924. Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo has denied any involvement in the explosions with the founder Hsu Ching-Kuang stating that his company had signed an agreement with a Hungarian based company to manufacture the devices and use his company name (6).
Initial reports suggest a couple of theories as to how these pagers exploded.
One is that this was a sophisticated cyber-attack, where the pager server was compromised, leading to the installation of a program script causing a system overload. This likely resulted in the overheating of the battery, which then subsequently exploded injuring the carrier. Notably, these latest models have lithium batteries which when overheated, can smoke, melt and catch on fire. Lithium battery fires can burn up to 590⁰C (7).
However, according to experts, footage of the pager explosions is inconsistent with that of batteries overheating. Therefore, a second theory which is widely considered to be more likely is that Israel’s spy agency Mossad planted a small amount of explosives in the pagers attacking their supply chain and tampering with the devices either in manufacture or transit. A former British Army munitions expert who spoke to the BBC said that the pager devices could each have been packed with 10 to 20 grams of military-grade high explosive. hidden inside a fake electronic component. This explosive would then have been armed and detonated by an alphanumeric text message signal sent to the pager devices remotely (6).
Where does this attack sit with international law? Article 35 of the ‘1977 Protocol additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949’ detailing the methods and means of warfare states that:
“It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” (8)
Additionally, Article 3 of the ‘Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War’ states that for any persons taking no active part in hostilities, violence including murder and mutilation is prohibited (9).
Following these clauses in the Geneva Conventions, which were ratified by Israel, there is strong argument to suggest this attack violates international law. Some people have died, however, due to the pager explosion actually being relatively weak, thousands of people have been permanently injured with life changing injuries where they will suffer for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, at the time of the attack many Hezbollah members were not actively engaged in fighting, and therefore could be considered to not be valid targets. This can be seen from numerous CCTV videos captured showing the moment the pagers were detonated and the people injured who were otherwise living their day-to-day life. Additionally, despite only the pagers worn by Hezbollah fighters being targeted, there have been reports of some civilian collateral casualties – most likely family members (2).
Despite this, considering the action in the wider theatre of war, it could also be argued that it was a very successful attack with minimal civilian casualties targeting a high number of Hezbollah fighters. Additionally, with no official acceptance of responsibility by Israel there is no group to blame for any violation of international law.
Signing of the Geneva Conventions in 1949
This attack on Hezbollah will raise wider security concerns for the group with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warning the group’s members not to carry mobile phones, saying that they could be used by Israel to track their movements and to carry out targeted strikes (10). Given some pagers now are also a threat, it remains to be seen how Hezbollah will look to alter their communication networks to stop a security breach like this happening again – perhaps it is a good time to be selling older pager models.
References
(1) Article Cover Image attribution - Photo by thenys on Freeimages.com
(2) The Independent - “Hezbollah exploding pagers latest: At least nine dead ‘including eight year-old girl’ in mass Lebanon attack” - 2024/09/17
(3) Reuters - “Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon” - 2024/09/17
(4) BBC News - “Israel sets new war goal of returning residents to the north” - 2024/09/17
(5) Jerusalem Post - “Did Israel retaliate against Hezbollah for attempted assassination of ex-defense chief? - analysis” - 2024/09/17
(6) BBC News - “What we know about the Hezbollah pager explosions” - 2024/09/17
(7) LBC International - “Hezbollah's pagers: How they work and what could have triggered their explosion” - 2024/09/17
(8) United Nations - “Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1)” - 1977/06/08
(9) United Nations - “Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War” - 1949/08/12
(10) Israel National News - “Nasrallah: 'Mobile phones are deadly Israeli agents'“ - 2024/03/06
WRITTEN & NARRATED BY ADAM CREEVY
