That makes a lot of sense (from the Israeli standpoint).
The company that sold them has stated that the pagers were actually made in Budapest, Hungary.
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria but that another company based in Budapest manufactured them.
Since Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary is a known ally of Benjamin Netanyahu, it seems plausible that’s where the bombs were installed and how they got access in the first place.
Here is a gift link to the article: gift link
I doubt it. You want to keep an op secret, you don’t tell a corrupt Eastern European government about it.
I’m a bit surprised that pagers are that useful to Hezbollah. Don’t they need a dedicated transmitter of some sorts within a few miles of each pager?
@Alessan , as an Israeli, do you feel any personal danger in any way? I hope you never suffer any, but I’ve been wondering.
I’m remembering an old friend from Northern Ireland. His father was plenty pissed off when his local pub was bombed by the IRA. Thankfully, his father was not there at the time, but it happened. Do such things affect you or yours?
I hope you’re okay, at any rate. We need your voice here on the SDMB!
Thanks for this! I think it answers any questions I have and I really appreciate all the posts here, mostly keeping to the topic.
I doubt they really cared about it being kept secret, just that Hezbollah not find out about it in time.
This article suggests the pagers were not made in Taiwan by the brand Gold Apollo, but by what looks like a shell company set-up in Hungary for one purpose, and using the brand name as cover…
There’s really no need to involve anyone in the government and as @Alessan said it would be huge risk. The only complicated part of this scheme is maintaining secrecy. The rest is ODM outsourcing 101.
Thanks!
In time for Orban to call his friend Putin, for Putin to call his friend Khamenei, and for Khamenei to pass the intel down to Hezbollah… so, like, 15 minutes?
I had a pager like twenty years ago and as I remember, we could transmit very short coded replies; like an acknowledgement.
Yeah. I could see Orban’s unknowing participation in this, but they wouldn’t trust him with anything important.
Yeah, I was too terse. Some pagers are/were two-way but Hz specifically said they were going to pagers because they were using one-way devices that thus weren’t trackable.
From that NYTimes article, this strikes me as implausible: “The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces…” Really? An extra ounce in a pager that’s only 133 g (4.7 oz) seems like it’d be pretty noticeable. I mean, clearly it happened—maybe that’s why they got suspicious and Israel had to send the 321BOOM! Or maybe it wasn’t that much; if you can make it kinda explode and spill the LION contents, maybe that’s enough? A bit of water in a packet included with the explosive? I forget the details of LION but ISTR that water is a Very Bad Idea.
/me makes a note to get specs on next cellphone he buys and to weigh it upon receipt to make sure it’s not a bit overweight…
Read my link above. 15g of explosive was enough to kill a bomb-maker with a cellphone bomb.
The one it was claimed to be was only 95 grams, battery included.
But the company had apparently taken down the product page after the explosions, which is why I had to go with the archive.org link. It makes me wonder if the published model specifications themselves were part of a trap–anyone other than Hezbollah attempts to order it they get an “out of stock” and the specs really mean “only 95 grams, battery and explosives included”.
Interesting. I got that 133g from a search, which doesn’t mean it’s right–but hey, if they’re supposed to be 95g, 38g of explosive would be plenty, as beowulff notes!
Also, pagers are receivers only. Adding the ability to transmit audio would require a complete redesign.
Again, these may have been one-way pagers, but two-way pagers have been a thing for a while.
From Wikipedia, “A pager, also known as a beeper or bleeper, is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowledge, reply to, and originate messages using an internal transmitter.”