What Visual Evidence Shows About Israel's Pager Attacks

When pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah operatives exploded on Tuesday, it sowed panic and overwhelmed hospitals across Lebanon. A second wave of explosions targeted wireless devices on Wednesday afternoon.

Footage capturing the moment of the attacks and their aftermath offers clues about how they unfolded — and the specific devices used.

Some of these images are graphic.

Tuesday’s explosions were triggered simultaneously, around 3:30 p.m. This security footage shows a grocery store in Beirut.

This blast ripped through a customer’s satchel, and he fell to the ground groaning in pain.

Shortly beforehand, thousands of Hezbollah members received pager messages that appeared to come from their leaders, according to two officials familiar with the attack. The devices beeped — and then blew up.

The pagers appear to have been packed with explosives in what Lebanese and Iranian officials say was an Israeli operation. 

One video appears to show a victim reaching for his pager and reading it for a few seconds before it detonates.

Some pagers were still on the belt clips of Hezbollah operatives, injuring them in their waist, imagery showed.

Other victims were seen with bloodied hands and arms, suggesting they were holding pagers when the devices exploded.

The attack overwhelmed hospital emergency rooms across Lebanon.

Ambulances screeched to hospital entrances with the injured, with multiple stretchers wheeled out at a time.

Of the 2,700 injured, hundreds were in critical condition. As of Wednesday, 12 people had died.

Chaotic scenes in hospitals showed dozens of mostly men with injuries to their hands, faces and torsos. Eye injuries were also common.

Hezbollah’s use of pagers increased after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, when Hezbollah’s leader warned that Israeli intelligence had penetrated the cellphone network, according to security experts.

It’s not clear exactly how the explosives worked. But fragments of the broken devices offered clues.

The details on the pagers’ shell — imprinted with the word “GOLD”  — correspond with pagers from Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese electronics brand.

That product listing has been taken down from the company’s website, and when reporters with The New York Times visited Gold Apollo’s offices in Taipei on Wednesday morning, the company denied involvement.

It pointed instead to another manufacturer based in Hungary, which it said had made that model as part of a licensing deal.

The attacks did not kill or maim only members of Hezbollah. They also killed two children. One of them, Fatima Jaafar Mahmoud Abdullah, was 9½ years old.

Far from the center of the attack, in a quiet valley in the east of Lebanon, mourners attended her funeral on Wednesday morning.

Another wave of explosions involving wireless devices rocked Lebanon on Wednesday.

In Dahiyeh, a suburb in the south of Beirut, the blast took by surprise mourners attending the funerals of Hezbollah members killed by exploding pagers the day before.

By Sanjana Varghese and Nader Ibrahim. Devon Lum and Euan Ward contributed reporting.