The saleswoman and the encrypted message: New details about the beeper atta

An investigation published yesterday (Saturday night) in The Washington Post revealed one of the Mossad's most complex and sophisticated operations in recent years. As part of the operation, Israel managed to transfer to Hezbollah some 5,000 beepers that looked innocent but actually contained remotely detonated explosives. The AR924 beepers made by the Taiwanese company Apollo were purchased by Hezbollah after being presented as untraceable devices by Israeli intelligence services.

According to the investigation, the Mossad worked for years on the operation to infiltrate Hezbollah with electronic monitoring and human informants. Hezbollah was looking for an electronic network immune to cyberattacks, and the Mossad came up with two tricks that would lead the terrorist organization to purchase radios that would look perfect for the job – equipment designed by the intelligence agency and assembled in Israel.

As part of the first part of the operation, the booby-trapped radios began arriving in Lebanon by the Mossad nearly a decade ago, in 2015. The portable two-way radios contained fairly large battery kits, concealed explosives and a transmission system that gave Israel full access to Hezbollah's communications. For 9 years, Israel made do with wiretapping Hezbollah, sources told the newspaper, while maintaining the possibility of turning radios into bombs in a future crisis.

Minutes after the beeper attack started (Photo: Arabic networks)

Since the leaders of the terrorist organization were alert to possible sabotage of the radios they purchased, the beepers could not be manufactured in Israel, the United States or any of its partners. In 2023, the terrorist organization began receiving requests to purchase large quantities of radios from Taiwanese-made Gold Apollo, a trademark and product line with global distribution, with no ties to Israeli or Jewish interests.

According to the officials, the Taiwanese company did not know about the plan. A marketing representative with ties to Gold Apollo came up with a sales offer and she was credible in Hezbollah's eyes. The marketing representative, a woman whose identity officials declined to disclose and where she came from, was a former Middle East sales representative for the Taiwanese company, which started its own company and received a license to sell beepers bearing the Apollo brand. Sometime in 2023, it offered Hezbollah a deal on one of the products its company sold: the "ultra-reliable" AR-924 device.

According to the sources, the actual production of the beepers was outsourced, so the marketing representative had no idea about the operation, nor was she aware that they were assembled in Israel under Mossad supervision. A source familiar with the operation added that the Mossad's buffers, which weighed less than 85 grams, had a unique feature: a battery kit that concealed a tiny amount of explosives.