The batteries of the walkie-talkie devices used by the pro-Iranian Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah that exploded this week were equipped with a powerful explosive compound called PETN (Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate), a Lebanese source told Reuters on Friday.
The way the explosive material was integrated into the devices’ power system made it extremely difficult to detect, even with scanners, explained the source involved in investigating the explosions.
There were also explosions of batteries separate from the devices, and a representative of the Japanese company Icom, which produced the type of transceiver stations that exploded, IC-V82, stated that most likely the explosive mechanism was inserted into the devices by replacing the battery altogether.
The Japanese company stated that it has not been manufacturing such stations for ten years, and the majority of those still on the market are counterfeit.
Hundreds of transceiver stations of the pro-Iranian Lebanese group exploded on Wednesday, a day after thousands of pagers also used by Hezbollah exploded in Beirut and in various other areas of Lebanon, in a sophisticated attack attributed to Israel, which resulted in at least 37 deaths, including two children, and over 3,500 injured.
The death toll could rise, as some of the injured are in critical condition. Many injured individuals have lost their eyesight or fingers.
The Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, whose brand is on the detonated pagers, claims that they were manufactured by its Hungarian partner company BAC, which in turn states that it is only an intermediary and denies any production activity, information confirmed by the Hungarian authorities. Another intermediary seems to be a "consulting" company registered in Bulgaria, Norta Global Ltd, created by a Norwegian citizen and suspected of having links with the respective Hungarian company and of buying and reselling the pagers to Hezbollah in a transaction conducted outside Bulgarian territory.
It appears that Mossad intercepted the deliveries before they reached Lebanon. The Israeli secret service implanted an explosive device in each of the respective devices with a detonation system activated at the reception of a specific message transmitted by the Israeli service through a hacking process, so as to appear that the message is being sent by Hezbollah, causing the thousands of pagers to explode simultaneously, as well as the walkie-talkie devices later on.