LAST UPDATE | 18 Sep
THE PAGERS USED by Hezbollah members that simultaneously exploded yesterday in Lebanon were originally reported to have come from Taiwan, but the manufacturer whose brand appeared on the devices has now said they in fact came from Hungary.
At least 12 people were killed, including two children, and some 2,800 were wounded when the pagers exploded across the country in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel.
Iran’s ambassador in Beirut was among the wounded but his injuries were not serious, Iranian state media reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, posting on X, condemned what he called “Israeli terrorism”, following a phone call with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib.
“Western countries and the Americans… fully support the crimes, killings and indiscriminate assassinations of the Zionist regime”, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement, referring to Israel, adding that the explosions should bring them “shame”.
Taoiseach Simon Harris said the incident is “extraordinarily concerning”.
“What the Middle East needs to see is de-escalation, not escalation. And as I get ready to go to the United Nations General Assembly next week, that’s certainly the message that Ireland will be taking to that,” he said.
“Obviously a country’s right to defend itself, a country’s right to address terrorism, is a legitimate right, but when explosives are being detonated, civilians being impacted and taking place in locations with many, many civilians, that’s extraordinary.”
UN human rights chief Volker Turk has said that those responsible for explosions “must be held to account”.
“Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law,” he said.
The AR-924 pagers used in the attack were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, according to a statement released by Gold Apollo, the Taiwanese firm that authorised the use of its brand on the pagers.
BAC appeared to be a shell company.
“According to the co-operation agreement, we authorise BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement.
The company’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, told journalists today that the firm has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years.
BAC Consulting Kft, a limited liability company, was registered in May 2022, according to company records.
At the headquarters in a building in a residential neighbourhood of Budapest, Associated Press journalists saw the names of multiple companies, including BAC Consulting, posted on pieces of paper on a window.
A woman who emerged from the building and declined to give her name, said the site provides headquarter addresses to various companies.
BAC is registered to Cristiana Rosaria Barsony-Arcidiacono, who on her LinkedIn page describes herself as a strategic adviser and business developer.
Among other positions, Barsony-Arcidiacono says on the page that she has served on the board of directors of the Earth Child Institute, a sustainability group. The group does not list Ms Barsony-Arcidiacono as among its board members on its website.
The AP has attempted to reach Barsony-Arcidiacono via her LinkedIn page and has been unable to establish a connection between her or BAC and the exploding pagers.
A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, had previously told AFP that “the pagers that exploded concern a shipment recently imported by Hezbollah of 1,000 devices,” which appear to have been “sabotaged at source.”
“For Israel to embed an explosive trigger within the new batch of pagers, they would have likely needed access to the supply chain of these devices,” Brussels-based military and security analyst Elijah Magnier told AFP.
“Israeli intelligence has infiltrated the production process, adding an explosive component and remote triggering mechanism into the pagers without raising suspicion,” he said, raising the prospect the third party which sold the devices could have been an “intelligence front” set up by Israel for the purpose.
Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the blasts.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” the group said in a statement, adding that Israel “will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression”.
Today the group vowed it “will continue” its fight in support of Gaza.
The United States, Israel’s main backer, was “not involved” and “not aware of this incident in advance”, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also denied that the US had prior knowledge of the attack.
The afternoon blasts hit Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon and dealt a heavy blow to the militant group, which already had concerns about the security of its communications after losing several key commanders to targeted air strikes in recent months.
The influx of so many casualties all at once overwhelmed hospitals.
At one hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an AFP correspondent saw people being treated in a car park on thin mattresses, with medical gloves on the ground and ambulance stretchers covered in blood.
“In all my life I’ve never seen someone walking on the street… and then explode,” said Musa, a resident of the southern suburbs, requesting to be identified only by his first name.
The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, the family and a source close to the group said.
In the village of Nadi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley, dozens gathered to mourn the death of nine-year-old Fatima Abdullah, the daughter of a Hezbollah member.
Her mother, wearing black and donning a yellow Hezbollah scarf, wept alongside other women and children as they gathered around the little girl’s coffin before her burial.
A son of Hezbollah politician Ali Ammar was also among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
With reporting from AFP and Press Association
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