How did Israel booby-trap the Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies that exploded over the past two days in a daring operation that enthralled the world?

“It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse,” the New York Times reported.

The report, quoting 12 current and former defense and intelligence officials who were briefed on the operation, described the plan behind the explosions as complex and long in the making.

At least two to three years ago, even before Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah decided to go “low-tech” and halt the use of cell phones among his operatives, Israel began establishing a shell company that would appear as an international pager producer.

B.A.C. Consulting appeared to be a Budapest-based company with a contract to manufacture devices for a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, but it was actually part of an Israeli front company, three intelligence officers briefed on the operation said. At least two other shell companies were also established to mask the true identities of the employees manufacturing the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.

B.A.C. did accept regular clients, for which it produced various pagers. But the only significant client was Hezbollah, and its pagers “were far from ordinary.” Hezbollah’s pagers were manufactured separately and were outfitted with batteries laced with the explosive PETN.

B.A.C. began shipping the pagers to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small quantities. After Nasrallah banned cell phones in February 2024, it quickly stepped up its production.

Some of Nasrallah’s fears were spurred by reports that Israel invested millions in developing new technology and had new means to hack into phones to spy on their owners. He decided that all cell phone communication — even encrypted messaging apps — was risky and not only banned cell phones from all Hezbollah meetings but ordered that Hezbollah plans or movement never be communicated via cell phones. He ordered all Hezbollah officers to carry pagers and said that if a war broke out, pagers would be used to transmit order to all operatives.

B.A.C received increased orders for pagers from Hezbollah over the summer and eagerly filled them. Thousands of the “enhanced” pagers (at no extra charge!) quickly arrived in Lebanon and were distributed to Hezbollah terrorists and their allies.

Israeli intelligence officers referred to the pagers as “buttons” that could be pushed when the time was right.

On Tuesday, when Israel was forced to prematurely activate the plan, the order was given to “press the buttons.”

Israel caused the pagers to beep and sent a message in Arabic that appeared to be from Hezbollah’s senior leadership.

Seconds later, Lebanon was in chaos.

For the Lebanese, the second wave of explosions was confirmation of the lesson from the day before: They now live in a world in which the most common of communication devices can be transformed into instruments of death.

One woman, Um Ibrahim, stopped a reporter in the middle of the confusion and begged to use a cellphone to call her children. Her hands shaking, she dialed a number and then screamed a directive:

“Turn off your phones now!”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)