Exploding Pagers in Lebanon Linked to Taiwan Manufacturer

(L-R) Remains of a destroyed pager; people gather outside a hospital in Beirut after the pagers blast. (Photos: X, Reuters)

On September 17th, hundreds of pagers in Lebanon simultaneously exploded. According to Lebanese security services and the health ministr, at least nine people have been confirmed dead, including an eight-year-old girl; And 2,750 more have been injured, including the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon.

Hezbollah has pointed out Israel is responsible for the attack. A notable detail reported by the Associated Press reveals that the pagers in question were a new model the group had not used before, raising suspicions.

Fragments from the exploded pagers have been identified as a model called the Rugged Pager AR-924, a product of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo. Photographs from the scene show these devices bearing Gold Apollo’s trademark. However, the company issued a statement distancing itself from the situation, claiming that a Hungarian company named BAC was responsible for the design and manufacturing of the products.

Social media photos of a damaged pager led to Gold Apollo being identified. The firm denies any involvement. (Photos: BBC)

Despite this claim, Hungarian authorities have denied the involvement of any local manufacturing, stating that BAC is merely a trading intermediary with no production facilities in Hungary. Adding to the mystery, a CNN investigation revealed that BAC’s registered office in Budapest appears to be vacant, with no physical presence at the address provided.

Although Taiwanese security official said the production of pagers is highly regulated in Taiwan due to their transmission functions, The New York Times reported the Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, allegedly hid explosives inside the pagers, later triggering the detonations remotely. The operation may have been going on for several months and involved at least 5,000 pagers, and the Taiwanese manufacturer claimed it knew nothing about it.

Further complicating the matter, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs disclosed that Gold Apollo shipped around 260,000 pagers globally, primarily to the U.S. and Australia, between early 2022 and August 2024. Interestingly, the AR-924 model used in the attack is not available for sale in Taiwan. Reports suggest that intelligence agencies, defense departments, and emergency services in the U.S. and Europe, including the FBI, are among the primary buyers of such devices.

Gold Apollo, known for producing a range of wireless communication devices beyond pagers, including waiter call buttons and nurse alert systems, is widely used in restaurants and hospitals across the U.S. and Australia.

In mainland China, pager is likewise a word found only in historical documents. But this remote-control bombing, suspected to be linked to Israel, brought back to the Chinese public another report from four years ago. Reuters in 2020 reported a U.S.-Israel agreement ensuring that only equipment from trusted vendors would be used in Israel’s 5G network infrastructure. At the time, China took issue with the labeling of its tech giant, Huawei, as “untrustworthy.”

But after this latest attack, the implications of what “trusted” means in Israeli authorities’ terms are now far clearer for Chinese.