Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, is well known for its innovative & audacious operations, many of which have inspired some of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. The spy agency’s exploits, from the Munich raid to the infamous ‘toothpaste assassination,’ are well documented. Adding to that long list is the spy agency’s new daring operation: the pager/walkie-talkie attack.
In a shocking development, communication devices known as pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah as well as civilians exploded near-simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria on September 17, killing scores of people and causing thousands of injuries.
Israel was accused of carrying out the remote attack by Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group based in Lebanon. The two sides have remained embroiled in tensions, regularly exchanging fire. Israel did not take responsibility for the attack, but the large-scale pager-explosions have been attributed to its spy agency, Mossad.
The attack has been described as Hezbollah’s biggest security breach since tensions flared following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel.
Initial reports suggested that the pagers were manufactured in Taiwan. However, on September 18, a Taiwanese business, ‘Gold Apollo,’ said it had approved its brand to be displayed on the AR-924 pagers, which were manufactured and distributed by a European company, BAC.
As the visuals of the explosions were published, initial reports stated that it was a cyber attack carried out by Israel. But a few hours later, it was established that Israel allegedly packed explosives inside a batch of pagers imported from the Taiwanese company—in what appeared to be a clear breach of the supply chain.
A senior Taiwanese security official told CNN on September 18 that there was no record of Gold Apollo pagers being exported from Taiwan to Lebanon or the Middle East. About 260,000 pagers were exported by Gold Apollo from Taiwan, primarily to the US and Australia.
According to an Axios report, a US official informed that just before the pagers detonated throughout Lebanon, Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant called US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, hinting that Israel would shortly launch an operation in Lebanon, but he would not provide any specifics.
The BBC was informed by an anonymous former British Army munitions specialist that the pagers were probably loaded with 10–20 grams of military-grade high explosive concealed within a fake electronic component. There is speculation that the attack was carried out to strike at Hezbollah’s confidence without launching an all-out war.
Pro-Israeli netizens were thrilled as reports of the pager attack swamped the internet. Some social media users on X said that Mossad had managed to pull off a plot straight from the movies; others said that it was a historical and revolutionary attack. Some military observers went so far as to say that it would go down as the “biggest pre-emptive attack in history.”
Mossad’s Use Of Toothpaste Before Pagers
Israel chose to eliminate Palestinian leader Wadie Haddad in 1978, who was the leader of the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Haddad was accused of orchestrating the Entebbe Hijacking of Air France Flight 139 in 1976. The flight, which was to fly to Paris from Tel Aviv, was hijacked and taken to Libya instead.
Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, sought revenge on Haddad after the Entebbe hijacking and put him at the top of their ‘Hit List.’
To evade international attention, Mossad opted for a covert form of execution instead of a public one. ‘Agent Sadness,’ who was granted access to Haddad’s private areas, was entrusted with the highly classified mission.
Haddad’s ordinary toothpaste was swapped out for a poisonous type on January 10, 1978. The Israel Institute for Biological Research created the toxin, which was intended to gradually and fatally infiltrate Haddad’s bloodstream through his mucous membrane.
Wadie Haddad had a normal dinner on an unremarkable mid-January day in 1978 in Baghdad before he started experiencing excruciating abdominal cramps.
He had started to lose his appetite and had shed almost twenty-five pounds.
Eventually, he was brought to an Iraqi government hospital. He had been diagnosed with hepatitis by the local doctors, but his condition was deteriorating. He was initially diagnosed with hepatitis, followed by a severe cold. Even strong antibiotics proved futile, and his hair began to fall out, leading to suspicions of poisoning.
The head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, asked an assistant to contact the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, for assistance. During this period, the Soviets supported the Palestinian guerrillas by giving them guns, ammunition, shelter, passports, and intelligence.
Haddad was sent from Baghdad to East Berlin when Arafat’s assistant contacted the Stasi, the East German secret service. He was taken to a hospital that catered to members of the secret service and intelligence establishment. Two months passed, but the root cause of Haddad’s distress remained unknown.
Haddad’s condition deteriorated further, leading to a dangerously low platelet count and extensive bleeding. He was screaming in pain for ten days before passing away on March 29, 1978.
The origin of the poisoning was not known for many years, but Professor Otto Prokop’s autopsy indicated brain hemorrhage and pneumonia brought on by panmyelopathy (an abnormal condition of all the blood-forming elements of the bone marrow). The autopsy hinted at an assassination attempt, but there was no clue how Haddadi was poisoned, if at all.
For many years, the real motive behind Haddad’s murder was kept a secret. It was several years down the line that Israeli investigative journalist & author Ronen Bergman’s “Rise and Kill First” included a thorough account of the Toothpaste Assassination.
Bergman clarified in an interview with the Times of Israel: “They suspected that the toothpaste was poisoned, so the Stasi sent reports to Iraqi intelligence, telling them, ‘You should look at your scientists and their toothpaste.” This prompted Iraqi intelligence to order its scientists to always have toothpaste on them when they travel.
As one of the most successful and covert Mossad operations that eluded the Israeli government, the Toothpaste Assassination will go down in history as one of the agency’s greatest achievements. As more news about the latest pager attack is published, Mossad’s impeccable strategy and execution of daring missions continue to enforce its unmatchable charisma.
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