Lebanon Pager Blasts: Hezbollah Vows To Retaliate Against Israel (image-screengrab/@eriksonvalentin)

At least nine people died and over 2,800 were injured after explosives planted by Israel’s Mossad spy agency inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah detonated on Tuesday. Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, has also been wounded, reported Iran’s state media. The explosions occurred around 3:30 pm (6 pm IST) in Lebanon.

An unprecedented Hezbollah security breach, the operation saw pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo detonating across Lebanon. The company, however, claimed that it did not manufacture the devices.

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Company founder Hsu Ching-Kuang stated the pagers used in the explosion were made by a Europe-based company that had the rights to use the firm’s brand. In its statement, Gold Apollo named BAC as the firm; however, no further comments were made on its location.

Vowing to retaliate against Israel, Iran-backed Hezbollah released a statement on Wednesday and said, “The resistance will continue today, like any other day, its operations to support Gaza, its people, and its resistance, which is a separate path from the harsh punishment that the criminal enemy (Israel) should await in response to Tuesday’s massacre.”

Hamas called the pager blasts an “escalation” and that it would lead Israel to “failure and defeat,” reported NDTV.

The explosions resulted in injuries related to the face, with missing fingers and gaping wounds at the hip (where the pagers were likely worn) being reported.

In an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication; however, the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service months in advance “at the production level,” stated Reuters sources.

Nearly 3,000 pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, activating the explosives, according to Reuters. It was also reported that up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the pagers, going undetected for months.

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Jonathan Panikoff, the U.S. government’s former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, called it “the biggest counterintelligence failure that Hezbollah has had in decades.”

The attack comes amidst escalating tensions between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel, which have engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza war erupted in October last year.