Ex-Mossad agents detail exploding Hezbollah pager operation that ‘broke’ Nasrallah

WASHINGTON — Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents have shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making that targeted Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie-talkies three months ago.

One of them said the psychological effect the attack had on Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who he asserted saw pagers blow up operatives right next to him, was “the tipping point of the war.”

The agents spoke in English with CBS “60 Minutes” in a segment aired Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to hide their identities.

On September 17,  thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon suddenly began to explode, injuring those holding them, and killing over two dozen. A day later, hundreds of walkie-talkies also blew up, injuring or killing scores more.

The attacks, swiftly attributed to Israel, came as Israel began to step up a counteroffensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which began striking Israel almost immediately after the allied Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas onslaught, and 251 were taken hostage, sparking the war in Gaza.

One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn’t realize it was buying from Israel, which it has sworn to destroy.

“We created a pretend world,” said the officer, who went by the name “Michael.”

Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, began in 2022 after Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency learned Hezbollah had been buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, the second officer said.

The pagers had to be made slightly larger to accommodate the explosives hidden inside. They were tested on dummies multiple times to find the right amount of explosive that would hurt only the Hezbollah fighter and not anyone else in close proximity.

Mossad also tested numerous ringtones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make someone pull the pager out of their pocket.

The second agent, who went by the name “Gabriel,” said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices as dustproof, waterproof, providing a long battery life and more.

He described the use of shell companies, including one based in Hungary, to dupe the Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, into unknowingly partnering with the Mossad.

Hezbollah also was unaware it was working with Israel.

Gabriel compared the ruse to a 1998 psychological film about a man who has no clue that he is living in a false world and his ostensible family and friends are actors paid to keep up the illusion.

“When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad,” Gabriel said. “We make like ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene. In their experience, everything is normal. Everything was 100% kosher including businessman, marketing, engineers, showroom, everything.”

Michael said the Mossad had “an incredible array of possibilities” for creating foreign companies with no traceable link to Israel.

“Shell companies over shell companies to affect the supply chain to our favor,” he said. “We create a pretend world. We are a global production company. We write the screenplay, we’re the directors, we’re the producers, we’re the main actors, and the world is our stage.”

By September 17, Hezbollah terrorists had 5,000 pagers in their pockets. When Israel triggered the attack, the pagers began beeping, and users were instructed to push two buttons simultaneously for an incoming encrypted message, a feint aimed at ensuring both their hands were on the device when it exploded.

The devices would explode even if the person failed to push the buttons, Gabriel said.

The next day, Mossad activated the walkie-talkies, some of which exploded at funerals for some of those killed in the pager attacks.

Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than actually killing Hezbollah fighters.

“If he just dead, so he’s dead. But if he’s wounded, you have to take him to the hospital, take care of him. You need to invest money and efforts,” he said. “And those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don’t mess with us.’ They are walking proof of our superiority all around the Middle East.”

In addition, the psychological effect the attack had on Nasrallah, was “the tipping point of the war,” Gabriel said.

He asserted that the veteran Hezbollah leader saw pagers exploding and injuring people who were right next to him in his bunker.

“Nasrallah, when we operated the beeper operation, just next to him in the bunker several people had a beeper receiving the message. And in his own eyes, he saw them collapsing.”

Asked how he knows that, Gabriel said, “It’s a strong rumor.”

Two days after the attack, Nasrallah gave a speech.

“If you look at his eyes, he was defeated,” Gabriel said. “He already lose the war. And his soldier look at him during that speech. And they saw a broken leader.”

In the days after the attack, Israel’s air force hit targets across Lebanon, killing thousands. Nasrallah was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his bunker.

By November, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a byproduct of the deadly attack by Hamas-led terrorists in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, ended with a ceasefire.

Michael said that the day after the pager explosions, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on their air conditioners out of fear that they would explode, too.

“There is real fear,” he said.

Asked if that was intentional, he said, “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are. We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.”