On the afternoon of 17 September 2024, thousands of pagers used by members of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously across Beirut and southern Lebanon. The devices, newly supplied to the group after its leadership urged members to stop using phones, detonated in shops, homes and on motorcycles, killing at least 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000, many of them badly injured in the face and hands.
A day later, walkie-talkies and other handheld radios exploded in a second wave, adding dozens more deaths. Israel never formally claimed the operation, but it bore the hallmarks of an intelligence coup in which supply chains had been intercepted and the devices rigged with explosives before delivery. Hezbollah blamed Israel and vowed retaliation.
The attacks marked a dramatic escalation in the low-level war between Israel and Hezbollah that had simmered since October 2023, and they foreshadowed the full-scale conflict that broke out weeks later. Beyond the immediate horror, the episode raised urgent questions about the weaponisation of everyday objects and the new battlefield of the physical supply chain, where even a trusted delivery could be turned into a bomb.