Supply Chain Sabotage: The Explosive Plot Behind the Deadly Attacks in Lebanon

The devastating double attack that caused thousands of pagers and radios to explode across Lebanon and Syria has ignited widespread concern about the security of everyday electronic devices.

As funerals were held for the dead and the wounded filled hospitals, social media and the international press buzzed with the alarming question: Could smartphones be next?

While the fear that this attack signals a vulnerability in consumer electronics is understandable, this question misses the heart of the issue. The real threat isn’t about digital hacking or software vulnerabilities; it’s far more old-fashioned and equally destructive: hardware tampering within the supply chain.

These attacks, which have so far left 26 dead and nearly 3,500 injured, were not a cyber-attack but an intricate act of physical sabotage.

Israeli intelligence agency Mossad is suspected to be behind the operation, although no official comment has been made by Israel. So far, two children have been reported killed in the attacks, including Fatima Abdullah, a nine-year-old girl from the village of Nadi Sheet in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

The wider injuries reported have been mostly in the eyes and face, followed by injuries to the fingers, hands, and abdomen. It appears many held the pager to their face as they looked at the screens when a long sound was emitted just before the device exploded.

It is not just pagers and radio handsets. Lebanon’s official news agency has even reported that home solar energy systems or fingerprint devices have exploded in several areas of Beirut. Three people were also reported killed by unspecified explosive devices in the town of Sohmor in the Beqaa valley on Wednesday.

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Supply Chain Sabotage and a Hungarian Company’s Role

At the core of this operation seems to be the manipulation of supply chains—a method that exposes how physical hardware can be tampered with long before reaching the end user.

The pagers involved were branded by the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, which once dominated the Dutch pager market and even reportedly supplied the FBI.

Hsu Ching-kuang, the Taiwanese entrepreneur behind Gold Apollo, has insisted that his company had no role in the production of the pagers used by Hezbollah.

According to Hsu, the devices used by Hezbollah featured a different chip from those his company normally uses. This points to a broader issue of supply chain vulnerabilities, where legitimate products can be altered and weaponised before reaching their destination.

Three years ago, a Taiwanese woman known only as Teresa brokered the deal allowing a Hungarian company, BAC Consulting, to use Gold Apollo’s brand.

NPR has reported that Hsu’s company later noticed irregular payments from BAC, which were transferred through a Middle Eastern bank that was later blocked by a Taiwanese bank.

BAC Consulancy’s Bársony-Arcidiacono, however, has told local Hungarian media that her company was not responsible for manufacturing the pagers that exploded in Lebanon. She said that BAC Consulting’s role was strictly as an intermediary, not a manufacturer.

The question remains as to who exactly produced the pagers, but it is clear that somewhere along the supply chain, the devices were intercepted and about two to three grams of explosives were likely inserted, turning ordinary pagers into deadly bombs.

What is clear is that this attack demonstrates the fragility and opacity of international supply chains, where companies and brokers span multiple countries, leaving security gaps open to exploitation. Though Hezbollah was the target, the broader implications of this incident extend to pre-planned hostile attacks on any electronics being used in conflict zones.

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A Simple Operation with Devastating Consequences

According to one retired counter-IED expert that spoke off the record, the operation would have been “almost trivial” for Mossad.

“All you need is one corrupt Hezbollah official in the supply chain,” the expert said.

While tampering with the devices themselves is technically simple, the real challenge was accessing them at the right point in distribution. The pagers were likely swapped out just weeks before the explosions, as part of Hezbollah’s routine communication cycle to avoid interception.

Hezbollah, which has long relied on secure communication systems, opting for pagers as mobile phones were deemed too vulnerable, not only lost lives but also suffered a long-term disruption to its communication infrastructure.

“Disrupting communications and trust for years—that’s the real impact,” the expert noted.

Another former military head of a counter-IED unit said of the strikes: “This is a new means of attack, both in terms of using exploding pagers and the mass synchronicity of the explosions.”

The most obvious explanation is that a tiny quantity of explosive material was concealed inside the pagers. The devices would have exploded on receipt of a coded message. This is similar to a device initiated by mobile phone, but on a much smaller scale, and far more difficult to detect

Former military head of a counter-IED unit

A former head of a British military Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit also said, again off the record: “For decades, armies have used sabotage tactics with varying amounts of explosives to disrupt supply chains, usually targeting insurgencies.

“However, their use must always be guided by necessity, proportionality, and humanity. The problem with recent events is the indiscriminate use of small explosives, without much regard for collateral damage—though this seems to be a tactic used by both sides.”

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Smartphones Are Not the Real Target

Amid the chaos, some media outlets have speculated that smartphones could be the next target. This fear, however, is misplaced.

The attack on Hezbollah’s pagers relied on physical access and manipulation of supply chains, something much harder to accomplish with modern smartphones.

While smartphones are also produced through global supply chains, they incorporate far more robust security measures, such as tamper-proof enclosures and advanced encryption. Major manufacturers like Apple and Samsung also have tightly monitored supply chains, making infiltration significantly more challenging.

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Civilians Under Attack

It’s worth remembering that what might seem shocking today has shocked before. Hezbollah and Israel have been in conflict since the 1980s, with the former using Iranian-supplied conventional munitions and the latter now resorting to covert sabotage methods.

In 1972, in retaliation for the Munich Olympics massacre, Mossad agents replaced the phone base in Mahmoud Hamshari’s Paris apartment with an explosive device.

When Hamshari, a PLO representative, answered it on December 8, the explosive was remotely detonated by a nearby Israeli team, resulting in his death.

Similarly, in 1996, Shin Bet used a Motorola Alpha cell phone with hidden explosives to kill Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas bombmaker, after tricking him into accepting a call from his father.

But none of this was on the scale seen in recent days.

What cannot be forgotten is that, while the pagers were Hezbollah’s primary target, civilians were still impacted.

“Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians, including children among the victims,” Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Lebanon’s Minister of Health Firass Abiad told Sky News that the use of explosive pagers in populated areas ranked alongside use of white phosphorus as an ‘indiscriminate’ banned act of war, under International Humanitarian Law.

This leads to the larger question: as technology evolves, how will this covert tech war escalate, and what role will supply chain manipulation play in future conflicts?

It’s a bloody reminder that even as modern warfare relies more on cyber and digital means, old-school methods of sabotage remain lethally effective.