Turkey intercepted second batch of pagers rigged with explosives after Israeli attack on Hezbollah

Authorities says they found batch of devices on their way from Istanbul to Lebanon

A crater is left after Lebanese Army soldiers blew up a device in the car park of the American University of Beirut Medical Centre in Beirut on September 18, 2024. The day before, pagers rigged with explosives were detonated, killing 12 people, including members of Lebanon's Hezbollah, injuring more than 2,800 others. EPAShow less

Turkey’s intelligence services intercepted a shipment of explosive-rigged electronics on its way to Lebanon last September, possibly preventing a repeat of the lethal Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah militant group days earlier, Turkish media and officials said.

Turkey’s spy agency, the MIT, received intelligence that a shipment weighing 850kg, containing 1,300 pagers and 710 charging devices, arrived at Istanbul Airport in September 2024, the Daily Sabah newspaper reported, one day before a wide-scale Israeli attack in Lebanon that blew up thousands of pagers in use by Hezbollah members.

A Turkish intelligence official said there was no official statement on the Daily Sabah report, but told The National that its details were correct.

MIT launched an operation, using information that the shipment from Hong Kong, labelled as "food choppers", was scheduled to depart from Istanbul to Beirut through the Turkish city's main airport, Daily Sabah said.

Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office ordered the confiscation of the cargo, and the shipment was transferred to a laboratory where analysis revealed three grams of a white, unidentified explosive material placed inside each pager’s battery block, along with detonator fuses.

An analysis of the desktop chargers and batteries also found a brown coloured explosive material that had been inserted into the batteries.

Speaking to the Associated Press, a Hezbollah spokesman said that days after the September 17 pagers attack in Lebanon and Syria, Hezbollah informed Turkish intelligence that a shipment of pagers was in Turkey and about to be sent to Lebanon.

Turkish authorities confiscated the pagers and most likely destroyed them, the Hezbollah spokesman said, without adding detail. Daily Sabah did not clarify what happened to the charging devices and pagers, which were from the Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo, the newspaper’s report added.

Israel confirmed last year that it carried out the pager and walkie-talkie attacks in Lebanon in September, although the Israeli military did not immediately respond to The National's request for comment on the Turkish interception of another shipment of rigged devices.

The explosions represented a huge escalation in the conflict with the Lebanese militant group that had been ongoing since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut 10 days later, and the cross-border fighting only eased in late November, when a ceasefire came into force. The pager attack killed dozens of people and wounded thousands more, including civilians. Two children were among those killed.

It is not clear why the details of the Turkish interception have come to light now. Turkey’s relations with Israel have significantly deteriorated since the October 7 attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, which Turkish officials have vigorously opposed.

Ankara also has frosty relations with Hezbollah: they supported opposing sides in the Syrian civil war, and the militant group receives backing from Iran, one of Turkey’s major regional rivals.