All the fragments about the Lebanon attacks read like a Hollywood script, yet the consequences are brutally real. Dozens of families have already lost loved ones, and the toll continues to mount. The devices that detonated, the beepers on Tuesday and the walkie-talkies on Wednesday, were reportedly engineered by Israeli intelligence, according to security sources cited by The New York Times. Those agents allegedly used at least three shell companies to mask the operation, including the Hungarian firm BAC Consulting, said to have distributed the devices to Hizballah under the umbrella of the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo.
Around 3:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday, the beepers rang in unison. Their owners were at home, at the supermarket, on the street, or driving. After a few beeps lasting a few seconds—allowing some to bring the device close enough to read the message—the device exploded. By day’s end, at least a dozen people had died and more than 2,700 were injured, overwhelming the Lebanese hospitals. Some survivors were left maimed or blind. The following day, another 25 Lebanese lost their lives when the walkie-talkies exploded in mysterious fashion. Many of the injured belonged to Hizballah, but not all. The nine-year-old Fatima died when the device exploded on the kitchen table as her father picked it up, staining the walls with blood.
Pushing forward from that grim start, the next day’s attack proved even more lethal. The Hizballah members carrying the walkie-talkies were nearly three times heavier than the earlier pagers and likely carried more explosive material, according to a visual analysis by U.S. media experts. Although the blasts on Wednesday were not as widespread, they sparked larger fires that even consumed vehicles. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the attack, which has produced the highest death toll since the fighting began on October 8 and has drawn little Western condemnation.
Secret Cyber Warfare Unit
Dozens of defense and intelligence officials, both current and former, who were briefed on the attack, say the Israelis were behind it and describe the operation as complex and long‑developed, according to The New York Times. As Hizballah grew aware of the threat posed by mobile phones, Israel reportedly established a phantom company to pose as a global producer of beepers. It named BAC Consulting, headquartered in Hungary, and it was contracted to manufacture the devices on behalf of the Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo. Intelligence officials interviewed by the Times say at least two other phantom entities were created to obscure the true source of the beepers, all tied to Israeli operatives.
Though BAC served various clients, the Hizballah‑oriented beepers were made separately and contained batteries loaded with PETN, an explosive that is notoriously hard to detect. From the summer of 2022, the beepers began arriving in Lebanon in small shipments. It was Nasrallah’s February push against mobile phones that year—where he warned that the devices he and his followers carried were a form of Israeli espionage—that spurred a surge in production. The message, and the fear it conjured, opened the floodgates for a wave of Trojan devices that would mark the largest cyber offensive of Hizballah’s history.
Meanwhile, far from the frontiers stained by blood, praise poured in for the precision of Israel’s intelligence operation. The attack has again brought attention to Israel’s renowned secret cyber warfare unit, 8200. One of the oldest components of the Israeli Defense Forces, it remains the largest military unit within the IDF. Beyond monitoring Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 8200 operates in combat zones and is a staple at the command center during times of war. It is staffed by young people, often teens, who work with the same energy and risk tolerance as a startup. Some are identified through highly competitive high school programs before pursuing careers in Israel’s burgeoning tech and cybersecurity sector.