Opinion: Planning Behind Israel's Pager Attack (Part 1)

Hamas Attack and the Two-Front War for Israel

On 7th October 2023, Hamas did such an attack on Israel that was very shocking for the entire world. And Israel was also not prepared for this & soon after that Israel started a large scale attack to get its revenge on Hamas. As soon as Israel started attacking, the next day i.e. 8th October 2023 in the north of Israel, Hezbollah of Lebanon who has alliance with Hamas started attacking Israel as well. And the heaviest attack done by Hezbollah was done on Sheba Farms which is a disputed land between Lebanon & Israel. Back to back, rockets were launched and air strike was done. This Hezbollah is an Iran backed Shia Group It has huge control on the southern part of Lebanon. Hezbollah's political & military both wings have been formed. In fact, in Lebanon's parliament they've 13 of their ministers. So on 8th October 2023, when Hezbollah attacked Israel back to back then Israel also started Air strike.

Hezbollah's Escalation and the Northern Border Scare

What I mean to say is, after the 7th October incident, within 2 days Israel had entered in a 2 front war in its north & south region where on one side it was fighting with Hamas & on the other hand, it was fighting with Hezbollah. When Hezbollah came to attack on Israel - Israel realized how much preparation it came only after 3 days i.e. on 11th October. This day Hezbollah started attacking, while being in Lebanon, on the northern region of Israel with heavy artillery, anti-tank missiles and drones. And when this attack was going on between Israel & Hezbollah then in the same week, news was released that Hezbollah's 20 militants are going to enter in the northern Israel by using para gliders and whatever was done on 7th October in Israel by Hamas same thing is to be repeated again & this time it would occur in the northern part of Israel. And when this news started circulating, then alarms went off in the entire northern region of Israel. Israeli forces told the citizens to take shelter. And then after this announcement, around 24-48 hours later Israel's army told that this was a false alarm that went off due to human error. And this information wasn't correct & there's nothing to be concerned about. But the Israeli citizens who lived in the northern part of Israel i.e. near the borders of Lebanon they saw few days before that how Hamas entered Israel and caused destruction. And at the same time, Hezbollah was doing a very heavy attack so, the Israeli citizens of the northern region got scared and around 96,00 Israeli who lived near the Lebanon border i.e. in the northern area of Israel they left that area i.e. their home and went to the other side. And the civilians on the Lebanon side backed off as well. Now, when it started then Netanyahu faced a lot of pressure from opposition a few days before south of Israel was attacked, people fled from there & now due to the attack in north people have to flee from their house. That Israeli citizens aren't able to live in their own house.

Opposition Pressure and the Strength of Hezbollah

They have to live in camp. So, regarding this Israel's opposition put a lot of pressure on Netanyahu and told him that this is Netanyahu's failure. And when this was pointed out a lot then Netanyahu promised that very soon, Israeli who fled from the northern area would go back to their houses. But it wasn't easy to do this because people will come back to Lebanon's border when Hezbollah would be on back foot. Attacks will be stopped & in comparison to Hamas Hezbollah was much stronger. It has more than 1,00,000 fighters. And it also has backing from Iran. So, that's why it was a very tough task for Israel. After this, Hezbollah & Israeli forces fought on the daily basis. Hezbollah which was attacking from south Lebanon, it had made a 4-layer security for itself. The first layer that they made was of Tactical defense. In the second layer, there were rocket and missiles. In the third layer, command and control. And in 4th layer, the main leaders who headed this mission stayed there. So, Israel used its Pegasus software, although they've lot of software but Pegasus is famous. So by using its Pegasus software they hacked the phones used by the leaders of Hezbollah they used to track their location & the strategy they made, which had a huge advantage for Israel. Israel hacked mobile phones of many of Hezbollah's leaders & tracked their location. And then by using guided missiles, attacked and killed them. So, by this many of Hezbollah's leaders were killed by Israel and which strategy will Hezbollah attack with Israel knew about it before itself. In fact, the leaders who weren't even in the war zone who were far inside Lebanon, Syria and planned missiles were aimed on them as well. And the biggest problem for Hezbollah began when on November 2023, Israel located Hussam Mohammad Ibrahim, Ali Raef, Ali Hassan and shoot them down through guided missiles. And these things began increasing a lot.

Hezbollah's Realization of Surveillance and Shift in Communication

Then starts the year, 2024 and as this new year comes people of Hezbollah realized that their planning is known to Israeli before itself. And the biggest reason behind it is the mobile. Because at that time, there were many Hezbollah commanders were killed by missiles when they used the mobile immediately. So, they tried to use less mobile phones. In fact, if they go for operations they shouldn't take mobiles. But even after that, tracking done by Israel became a huge headache for Hezbollah because on using the mobiles, Israeli used to know everything. And if they didn't use it how would they co-ordinate among themselves, how would they communicate they faced this problem a lot. So, slowly they left phones and started putting small efforts like, hand written letters, they also started using pagers as well but not in a large scale. There were very few people who used pagers to communicate. Now after that, the month of February 2024 starts and Hezbollah's leader - Hassan Nasrallah comes out on TV & gives a message to the people of Hezbollah in the message he says that - "You ask me where the Israeli agents are. I'll tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife's hands, in your children's hands"

Hezbollah's Mass Adoption of Pagers

So after the message given by Hezbollah's leader -the members of Hezbollah who used pager sometimes and used phones only when in need - now they rapidly left phones & shifted towards using pager. Actually, what happened was - the mobile is connected with the local tower If someone establishes control on that tower, then the phones of the entire area can be tracked and mobile has Wi-Fi, GPS, Internet, Sim Card, IMEI number with which everything can be tracked. But pagers work in RF technology i.e. Radio frequency like, our normal radios also work on the same RF technology. So, the location of this pager can't be tracked. Pager has one-way communication there're some advanced pagers which have two-way communication but the common pagers have one-way communication i.e. a message can only be received. You can receive but you can't send the message. So, a person uses a computer or centralized service to send a message in bulk to 100 or 200 or 1000 pagers and that message is conveyed. And this is the reason that even in today's date where there's such an advanced technology, even at this time, people who have security issues use pager. Many restaurants & hospitals also use pager sometimes, where the message is broadcasted to the staff altogether to co-ordinate. So, looking at these things - Hezbollah also decided that they'll use pager.

Hezbollah's Pager Order and Israeli Intelligence Response

They were talking about it since a long time, when many members started dying & even their leader said it on TV then in the starting of March 2024, Hezbollah started looking for companies in the entire world to order pagers. They had decided that they would order 5000 pagers and they even fixed a specific model that AR-924 model will be used. Now, when Hezbollah was deciding all of these, then all this intel reached Israel as well that Hezbollah, which wanted to shift to Pager since many years now it is looking for companies to order in bulk & it has even ordered pagers from some companies. So, to deal with all these there's a dedicated intelligence unit in Israel named, 8-2-Hundred This isn't called 82 hundred, they call it 8-2-Hundred. Actually, Israel's intelligence is divided in 3 parts. One is Mossad, that works on international operations i. e the threats which occur from countries outside of Israel's border second is - Shin Bet - which is also called as Shabba. It works on Israel's internal security, if there's a spy of a foreign country if he enters Israel and does something, then this unit finds the spy which enters the boundary & kills them. And the 3rd is, Agaf HaModi'in - it is Israel's military intelligence and And there's a unit in this military intelligence - Shmone Matayim which they call as Unit 8-2-Hundred this unit is the expert of signal intelligence and cyber operations. tracking all the electronic devices, fridge, mobile, computer - fixing bomb in them & killing enemies all these tasks comes under this unit. If you remember, then in 2020 Israel killed Iran's scientist with the help of AI assisted robot remotely through satellite. That was done by this 8-2-Hundred unit. And Hezbollah's pager task was assigned to this unit itself.

Israel's Strategy: Tracking Pager Manufacturers and Establishing Shell Companies

Now, when this unit got this task then they knew that if Hezbollah is shifting to pager in bulk, then 1-2 pagers won't work for them they would need thousands of pagers in bulk. So, unit 8-2-Hundred tracked all the major companies all over the world which manufacture pagers like, Gold Apollo, Multitone electronics, Unication, Swiss phone then after some time, they get intel that from Gold Apollo Hezbollah had ordered pagers before as well, routing through multiple countries to Lebanon. Secondly, Hezbollah is declared as a terrorist organization by US, Japan, European countries so Hezbollah avoids its transactions in these countries. And Gold Apollo was in Taiwan, so it was perfect for ordering pager. That's why it’s easier for Hezbollah to operate in Taiwan as compared to rest of the countries, where multiple intelligence agencies are trying to keep a track on Hezbollah. So, after this Israel decides to make links in Gold Apollo anyhow but Gold Apollo is listed among world's biggest pager company it’s not very easy to spy in it and track everything. So, deal with these, Israel's unit 8-2-Hundred choose a very different way. So, Israel's intelligence units register companies in different domain in different countries so that if they ever need in future, then they wouldn't have to make new companies. Because people doubt new companies, so before itself Israel's intelligence unit register different companies. So after this, Israel tried making shell companies in Hungary's capital - Budapest. They selected Hungary because the import and export policy are followed by European Union but Hungary supports foreign investment, free-trade more for the growth of its countries.

The Budapest Shell Company: BAC Consulting and Suspicious Individuals

Even if you see, then in the entire Europe Hungary takes very less corporate tax to support all these. So, Israel finds a place in 14th district of Hungary's capital Budapest 33 A 1142 Budapest - in the ground floor of this building - Israel had set up a company whose name was - BAC consulting. This is the original phot of that building & 13 more companies are registered in this building if you visit this address now, then they had put up a paper and they've fled from here. But at that particular time, there was girl in this company - Cristiana Barsony they made her the CEO but this hasn't been confirmed yet that this girl was made the CEO by deception or she's actually working with Israel. But REUTERS caught some lies. They showed on the website of BAC consulting that Cristiana is a board member of the Earth Child Institute. But when it was checked, it came to be lie. Similarly, when Cristian's resume was checked then the lie was caught in it as well. They had shown that she's the project manager of International Atomic Energy Agency while that wasn't the case. She wasn't managing a project there. So, for now Cristiana is being reached out by everyone but nobody could ever talk to her. A total of 2 people have been named who are mostly discussed about one is Cristina & the other is, Rinson Jose of Indian origin. Who migrated from Kerala to Norway. His name came to light as well, in this deal that his company - Norta Global LTD - 1. 6 million euros have been sent through this company to help Israel. The national security agency of his country declined that - there's nothing like that. But for now, the Wayanad police in India has started enquiry about Rinson Jose. So, from now Israel's plan was to set up BAC company and make it a front party to deal with Gold Apollo. Now you'll see how it was done. And apart from BAC company, 2 more shell companies were made whose name, address - nothing has been found out. It’s being said for these 2 companies that these companies were a part of Israel's master plan.

Establishing Credibility and Targeting Gold Apollo

When Israel made this shell companies, they started making genuine clients and started supplying pagers in bulk in the area. Now, they were manufacturing pagers here itself or they were bringing from somewhere else - it’s not clear yet. All the things that I'm telling you is on the basis of a report published by Sheera Frenkel, Saad & Ronen in New York Times on 18th September. Now, discussion is taking place everywhere about this report. After making these shell companies, they showed that it’s the information coordinator for European Institute of Innovation & Technology that does business for European Commission like, Bulgaria Croatia, Estonia Hungary, Malta, Latvia in such companies. Now, after setting all these up Israel had started the business but Israel knew that how big of a business its shell companies make show their business in multiple countries, but Hezbollah won't even touch pagers from an unknown company. So to deal with this, they try to get in touch with Gold Apollo in Taiwan. Because they believed that Gold Apollo is trusted by Hezbollah, they ordered pagers from there before as well.

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