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Post by Admin on Sept 17, 2024 18:35:30 GMT
Israel didn't inform the Biden administration ahead of its intelligence operation that included exploding thousands of Hezbollah members' pager devices, two U.S. officials told Axios.
Why it matters: The explosions killed at least nine people, including a child, and wounded 2,750 others, among them many members of Hezbollah and its military units.
Why it matters: The explosions killed at least nine people, including a child, and wounded 2,750 others, among them many members of Hezbollah and its military units.
The U.S. "was not aware of this operation and was not involved" in it, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, adding that the U.S. is "still gathering information" about the explosions in Lebanon. He didn't confirm that Israel was behind the attack. The operation also shut down a significant part of Hezbollah's military command and control system. Hezbollah accused Israel of conducting the attack and pledged to retaliate.
Driving the news: The operation was approved earlier this week during security meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior members of his cabinet and the heads of the security services, a source with knowledge said.
It took place a day after U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel and warned Netanyahu of the consequences of a major escalation in Lebanon. On Tuesday, Netanyahu and Israel's Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant spent several hours at the IDF command center in Tel Aviv, an Israeli official said.
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2024 17:15:55 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2024 22:34:12 GMT
Details about the walkie-talkies detonated in Wednesday's explosions are still coming to light. Footage shot in the aftermath showed destroyed devices bearing the brand Icom, a Japanese company. The BBC reached out to Icom Japan via a contact form on their website but has not receive a reply.
The pagers that exploded on Tuesday were a new brand that the group had not used before, one Hezbollah operative told the AP news agency. A Lebanese security official told the Reuters news agency that around 5,000 pagers were brought into the country about five months ago. Labels seen on fragments of exploded pagers point to a pager model called the Rugged Pager AR-924. But its Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo has denied any involvement with the explosions. When the BBC visited Gold Apollo on Wednesday local police were swarming the company's offices, inspecting documents and questioning staff.
The founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, said his company had signed an agreement with a Hungarian-based company - BAC - to manufacture the devices and use his company's name. He added that money transfers from them had been "very strange", without elaborating. BBC Verify has accessed BAC’s company records, which reveal it was first incorporated in 2022. Its CEO Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono told NBC that she knew nothing about the explosions. “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong," she said. The Hungarian government said the company had "no manufacturing or operational site" in the country.
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Post by Admin on Sept 19, 2024 17:15:23 GMT
An American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — where small amounts of explosives hidden in the pagers were detonated. The Lebanese government and Iran-backed Hezbollah also blamed Israel for the deadly explosions. The Israeli military, which has a long history of sophisticated operations behind enemy lines, declined to comment.
A day after these deadly explosions, more detonations triggered in Beirut and parts of Lebanon Wednesday — including several blasts heard at a funeral in Beirut for three Hezbollah members and a child killed by Tuesday’s explosions, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.
At least 25 people were killed and more than 600 were wounded, the Health Ministry said, in this apparent second attack.
The leader of Hezbollah said Thursday the mass bombing attack on the group’s communications devices in Lebanon and Syria was a “severe blow” and said Israel had crossed a “red line.” But Hassan Nasrallah vowed the group would emerge stronger and continue its daily strikes into northern Israel. He said the group is investigating how the bombings were carried out.
“Yes, we were subjected to a huge and severe blow,” he said. “The enemy crossed all boundaries and red lines,” he added.
He vowed that Hezbollah will keep going on with its attacks along the border with Israel as long as the war in Gaza continues.
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Post by Admin on Sept 19, 2024 21:20:08 GMT
Damaged pagers in Lebanon bore the name of a Taiwanese manufacturer – but the company said the devices were instead made and sold by a Hungarian company in Budapest.
Hungarian authorities denied this, however, saying the Budapest firm was a “trading intermediary” with no manufacturing sites in the country.
CNN has tried to contact the company and its chief executive, but did not receive a response. However, according to NBC News, the chief executive confirmed in a phone call that her company worked with the Taiwanese manufacturer – but denied making the pagers and said she was just “the intermediate.” CNN could not confirm her statement.
Making things even stranger, the address for the company’s office is in a residential area – where other people in the building said they hardly saw people coming to work, and that the Budapest company had never physically been to the building.
Late Thursday, The New York Times reported that the Hungarian company, BAC Consulting, was in fact part of an Israeli front, citing three intelligence officers briefed on the matter. The firm was one of at least three shell companies created to mask the fact that Israeli intelligence personnel were manufacturing the pagers, the officers told the Times.
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