Israel killed a Hezbollah operative who suspected its pager plot before he could foil the carefully-planned operation, it has been revealed.
Details from an interview given by former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to Channel 12 around 18 months ago were cleared for publication by Israel’s military censor on Monday evening.
According to the report, Israel learned in the first week of August 2024 that a Hezbollah operative had begun to suspect or examine the pagers that had been supplied to the group, which would eventually be blown up in a mass assassination of the group’s leadership.
Israeli security services managed to kill the operative but arranged the operation so that Hezbollah would believe another of its people had been the intended target and that the man’s death was incidental, per the report.
“In the first week of August it becomes clear to us that there is someone who suspects the pagers, go to the elimination list and we eliminated him,” Gallant said.
However, the newly released account states Iranian testing and scanning equipment was subsequently sent to Lebanon to examine the pagers.
Israel destroyed the equipment while creating circumstances designed to convince Hezbollah that the incidents were unrelated to the communications devices.
“Afterwards it becomes clear to us that testing devices are arriving that could examine these devices along with other things. And then during the process it becomes clear that somewhere there are pagers being tested,” Gallant explained.
“The result is that you enter a situation, either you activate or it's exposed within a short time.”
The broader operation also included hundreds of walkie-talkies, which were detonated the following day.
“What is at stake is only one question: if you play, can you reach the full operation of walkie-talkies first? From constraint was born the strategic event.”
The pager operation had reportedly been years in the making, with former Mossad operatives later telling CBS’ 60 Minutes that Israel had used shell companies and a sophisticated supply-chain deception to get the devices into Hezbollah’s hands, with fake advertising and other measures helping make the products appear legitimate.
By September 2024, Hezbollah had acquired about 5,000 rigged pagers, according to the former agents.
On September 17, thousands of the devices exploded simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria. The following day, Hezbollah’s walkie-talkies also began exploding.
Early reports put the immediate toll in the thousands of wounded; later reporting cited by Israeli media estimated that the two-day operation killed at least 59 people and injured roughly 4,500.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike less than two weeks later, described the attacks as an “unprecedented blow in the history of the resistance in Lebanon”.
The details also suggest the operation involved an element of deliberate psychological deception. Channel 12 reported that “M-tech”, apparently standing for “Mossad-tech”, was marked on the pagers, while Mossad operatives reportedly filmed mocking videos about Hezbollah receiving the devices directly.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the pager operation, although extensive reporting and subsequent accounts from former Israeli intelligence personnel have attributed it to Mossad.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.