by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Chief International Correspondent

JERUSALEM/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Israel has lifted censorship on dramatic new details surrounding its 2024 explosive-pager operation against Hezbollah that killed or wounded thousands of members of the designated terrorist organization.

New footage, soon to be released, also reveals how Israeli intelligence operatives killed a Hezbollah fighter who had become suspicious of the pagers and destroyed Iranian inspection equipment to prevent the secret mission from being exposed.

The disclosures come days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly revived memories of the operation at the United Nations, holding up a pager during his address to the General Assembly.

“Remember the beepers? Remember these things?” Netanyahu asked while displaying the device. “Well, I can tell you this: Hezbollah certainly remembers them.”

The September 2024 pager operation killed or wounded some 3,500 Hezbollah operatives, according to Israeli estimates, while Lebanese officials say civilians, including children, were also among the casualties. Hundreds more people were killed or wounded the following day when Hezbollah’s handheld radios and other communications devices exploded.

YEARS OF SECRET PLANNING

New details of the covert mission are emerging ahead of the October 30 release of Paging Hezbollah, a documentary about the operation carried out by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. Directed by Justin Folk, the film includes interviews with Netanyahu, Mossad chief David Barnea and other Israeli and American security figures.

The film portrays an operation years in the making in which Israeli intelligence penetrated Hezbollah’s communications supply chain, helping design, market and deliver compromised devices while convincing members of the group that the pagers were safe to use.

In the documentary’s trailer, Barnea recalls telling those involved: “You have to turn this pager into a bomb.” Netanyahu says the small quantity of explosives concealed inside the devices ultimately “changed the world.”

Yet newly uncensored remarks from former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant show that the operation came close to being uncovered before Israel activated the devices.

Gallant said Israeli intelligence learned in August 2024 that a Hezbollah operative had become suspicious of the pagers and was investigating them.

OPERATION NEARLY EXPOSED

Israel subsequently killed the Hezbollah operative alongside another person, disguising the strike as a separate operation in which the operative appeared to be collateral damage, Israeli sources said. The deception was intended to prevent Hezbollah from realizing the pagers were under suspicion.

Israel says its forces do not intentionally target civilians and that deliberate attacks on them are prohibited, while acknowledging that civilians can be harmed during strikes against military targets.

The danger increased when Israeli intelligence discovered that equipment was being brought in to examine the pagers.

Israel destroyed inspection equipment while seeking to make the strikes appear unrelated to the compromised communications devices, according to Gallant’s account.

Netanyahu later disclosed that Hezbollah had sent three pagers to Iran for scanning, raising fears that the explosives hidden inside them would be discovered.

IRAN CHECKS DEVICES

“In the third week of September, we learned that Hezbollah had sent three pagers to Iran for scanning,” Netanyahu recalled. He also disclosed that Israel had previously bombed a scanner intended to examine the devices and killed its operator.

Gallant said the developments left Israel facing a rapidly narrowing window in which it could activate the operation or risk seeing years of secret preparations exposed.

“The result is that you find yourself in a position where you either have to act or risk being exposed, and that could happen very quickly,” the former defense minister recalled.

The pagers were detonated on September 17, 2024, with the second wave involving handheld radios and other communications devices the following day, stunning Hezbollah and demonstrating the extent to which Israeli intelligence had penetrated its communications network.

The documentary portrays the devices as a modern version of the Trojan horse, with Hezbollah unknowingly helping distribute compromised equipment among its own members.

HUNGARIAN CONNECTION

Yet the operation also had an unexpected Hungarian dimension.

The pagers carried the brand of Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo, which said following the explosions that the devices had been made under license by Budapest-based BAC Consulting KFT, according to a Worthy News investigation in Budapest at the time.

Then-Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács said “the company in question is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary.” He added that the devices had never been in Hungary.

However, a later investigation revealed that the government of then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán offered intelligence cooperation to Iran less than two weeks after the pager explosions, despite Orbán’s longstanding public support for Israel.

A leaked transcript of a September 30, 2024, telephone conversation, obtained and authenticated by a Western intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post, showed then-Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó offering information to his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.

INTELLIGENCE OFFER TO IRAN

“Our secret service has already contacted your services, and we will share all the information we have gathered during the investigation” into the explosions, Szijjártó reportedly told Araghchi.

“Every possible document will be shared with your services,” the Hungarian foreign minister added, according to the transcript.

The disclosure was particularly sensitive because Iran was Hezbollah’s principal state sponsor and the country where Israeli officials feared examination of the pagers could expose the covert operation.

Worthy News reported that the revelations raised questions about Budapest’s actions following one of Israel’s most sensitive intelligence operations, particularly given Orbán’s close political relationship with Netanyahu.

Szijjártó later confirmed that recordings of his diplomatic conversations existed but described the wiretapping as a “huge scandal,” while Orbán ordered an investigation.

QUESTIONS OVER BUDAPEST ROLE

There is no evidence that Hungary knew how Israel had compromised the pagers or that Budapest actually provided Iran with Israeli operational secrets.

Yet the newly uncensored accounts revealed the extraordinary lengths Israel was prepared to go to target what it perceives as threats to its existence, such as Hezbollah and Iran.

The explosive-pager operation has become a defining chapter in the armed conflict, remembered by Hezbollah and far beyond.

Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.