Exploding pagers in Lebanon not made in Taiwan — prosecutors – DW – 11/11/2024

Taiwan said on Monday it had closed its investigation into a pager attack on Hezbollah militias in Lebanon in September, without finding any evidence of involvement of Taiwanese firms or individuals.

Security sources had previously said that the pagers bore the name of Gold Apollo, a Taiwan-based company.

In the incident, which is thought to be an Israeli intelligence operation, more than 40 people, including at least 12 civilians, died and more than 3 thousand people were injured as a result of the explosion of pagers used by Hezbollah instead of mobile phones for security purposes.

What did the prosecutors say?

In their statement, Taiwanese prosecutors said that the AR-924 pager model that exploded in Lebanon was produced, traded and shipped by a company called Frontier Group Entity and was produced outside Taiwan.

But they said Gold Apollo authorized the company to use its trademark.

“There is no evidence that any domestic manufacturer or individual was complicit in the explosions in question, violated the Anti-Terrorism Financing Act, or engaged in any other illegal activities,” the statement said.

“No concrete evidence of criminal activity was found in this case, and after a thorough investigation, no individual was found to be involved in any criminal activity,” the statement said.

Gold Apollo has always refused to manufacture devices.

Controversial attack method

The use of pagers as a method of attack has been criticized by human rights groups as being too indiscriminate to comply with international conventions on legitimate warfare, as possible victims cannot be identified in advance as militants or civilians.

Many children were among those injured in the incident on September 17, which was followed by a radio explosion on September 18.

The explosions took place shortly before Israel launched a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which launched attacks against Israel last year in support of its ally Hamas.

Israel has been fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the militant Palestinian group raided southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing nearly 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostage.

tj/wmr (AFP, Reuters)