Summary & Context
At least nine people, including an eight-year-old girl (19/09/2024), have died because of exploding pager devices across Lebanon. The use of pagers to attack members of the militant group Hezbollah has renewed focus on a device which stopped being widely used years ago.
What is a pager?
Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in the belief they could evade Israeli location tracking, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters earlier this year. Unlike mobile phones, pagers work on radio waves, the operator can send a message by radio frequency rather than the internet. They are useful for any situations where mobile phone use is unreliable, so, it would have been seen as a safer, less prone to detection type communication method for Hezbollah than mobile phones.
Are pagers still widely used?
While less common than they once were, pagers are still used across the world in healthcare, mining, emergency services and many professions where people work in areas with no phone reception. They are favoured by some first responders due to their ability to get a message out to multiple people urgently and without interruption, and their long battery life. Pagers use frequencies that are like FM radios and those frequencies can penetrate thick walls and metal barriers and that’s why pagers are reliable in healthcare settings.
Pagers seen as a more ‘‘secure’’ option
Pagers are seen as more secure, robust devices than mobile phones because the chances of being intercepted are low. Pagers themselves cannot be tracked easily as they are only receivers. Phones need to transmit regularly to tell the mobile network where they are, and pagers do not do this. Pagers have been known to be used for less legitimate reasons, such as dealing drugs because those illegal activities, only need one-way communications.
We are not surprised to hear they have also been utilized by “terrorist organizations’’, pagers, which were widely used before the advent of smartphones and advanced encryption methods, provide a means for secure, discreet communication, which is crucial for groups operating in clandestine environments. Their use aligns with the historical need for secure communication methods, particularly in areas with limited or disrupted telecommunications infrastructure.
When were they invented?
The use of pagers dates all the way back to 1921. In 1950 a pager-like device was created by Al Gross, the inventor who patented the walkie-talkie and cordless phone, for use by doctors at the Jewish Hospital in New York.
How did the use of pagers evolve?
In 1959, Motorola coined the term pager and introduced the first transistorized pager to the market the following year. The device was quite simple in the beginning, but use grew in the 1980's when wide-area paging was invented, allowing messages to be conveyed over radio waves across a city, state, or a country. Motorola was the populariser of this, and it grew in popularity to around 60 or 70 million people. Pagers were being used around the world by 1994.
While many people will never have used a pager, they became commonplace in TV shows and other popular culture references, with a stream of programs involving hospital emergency rooms or curb side drug dealing featuring lead characters carrying pagers. By the early 2000's, use had dropped because of the increased use of the mobile phone. Over time, there have been changes to allow the messaging to be two-way, but the main use has been for the one-way delivery of a message.
Are people buying pagers still?
The demand is high enough that there are still pager manufacturers in Taiwan and China, however, there is no consumer-level demand.
What do we know about the pagers used by Hezbollah?
A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that 5,000 of the Gold Apollo beepers had been ordered by the group earlier in the year. Gold Apollo is a Taiwanese company. He identified a photograph of the model of the pager, an AR-924, which like other pagers wirelessly receives and displays text messages but cannot be used to make telephone calls. Gold Apollo's company founder Hsu Ching-Kuang has told reporters they did not make the pagers that were used in the detonations in Lebanon on Tuesday.
The company said in a statement that the AR-924 model was produced and sold by BAC. "We only provide brand trademark authorization and have no involvement in the design or manufacturing of this product'', the statement said. Mr. Ching-Kuang said Gold Apollo and BAC established a relationship three years ago. Mr. Ching-Kuang said the pagers were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the Taiwanese firm's brand. "The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it'', he said.
A source told a media outlet that Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, had planted a board inside the pagers that contained explosive material and could remotely receive a detonation code later.
Hezbollah and Lebanon have both blamed Israel for the exploding pagers, though Tel Aviv has not claimed responsibility. A July report from Reuters citing multiple sources familiar with Hezbollah said that the group had made the switch due to the loss of several commanders amid hostilities with Israel.
The exploding pagers have led to heightened fears that Israel and Hezbollah may escalate their conflict into a wide-scale or direct war. Both have been conducting cross-border strikes against each other for months in the wake of Hamas' October 7th attack and Israel's subsequent deadly campaign in Gaza. The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of residents on either side.
Before the pagers exploded on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his administration's war goal of returning Israeli evacuees to their homes near Lebanon. "The Security Cabinet has updated the objectives of the war to include the following: Returning the residents of the north securely to their homes", Netanyahu's office said in a statement. "Israel will continue to act to implement this objective", it added. He had made no comment or hint implying involvement or planning in any specific attack on Hezbollah.
This story is ongoing, and accurate at the time of writing (18/09/2024).
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