Inside Mossad’s Secret Operation: The Shocking Hezbollah Pager Plot Exposed

After nearly a year of war between Israel and the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, Lebanon was sent reeling in September when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members exploded.

Two recently retired senior Mossad agents, who were among those spearheading the years-long operation, detailed the inside story of how they built the devices and got them into Hezbollah’s hands, shifting the course of Israel’s escalating war with the Iran-backed group.

The walkie-talkie and pager plots had a profound ripple effect: weakening Iran by leaving its proxy empire in ruins, with Hezbollah crushed in Lebanon and the Assad regime toppled in Syria.

“We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are,” said Michael, who agreed to speak with 60 Minutes while masked and using a false name. “We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.”

Weaponizing Walkie-Talkies

Mossad’s walkie-talkie operation was about waging war through deception and trickery, which was in line with the spy agency’s motto. Work began on weaponizing the walkie-talkies more than a decade before Israel set them off in September.

“The walkie-talkie was a weapon, just like a bullet or a missile or a mortar,” Michael said.

The walkie-talkie battery, made in Israel at a Mossad facility, included an explosive device, Michael disclosed. The walkie-talkies were designed to go into the chest pocket of a tactical vest for soldiers.

According to Michael, Hezbollah bought more than 16,000 of the exploding devices, some of which were eventually used against them on Sept. 18.

“They got a good price,” Michael said.

The price couldn’t be too low because Israel didn’t want Hezbollah to be suspicious. Mossad also needed to hide its identity as the seller and ensure the walkie-talkies couldn’t be traced back to Israel. So they set up shell companies to infiltrate the supply chain.

“We create a pretend world. We are a global production company: We write the screenplay, we’re the directors, we’re the producers, we’re the main actors,” Michael said. “And the world is our stage.”