The Death Beep: Behind the Operation That Broke Nasrallah | Two Years Since the Pager Operation

A magazine feature marking two years since the pager operation reveals new details about its planning and execution. The operation, which began with the explosion of thousands of pagers on September 17, 2024, caused nearly 5,000 injuries and over 20 deaths among Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The article describes how Mossad chief David Barnea accelerated device production after October 7, and how a production line was set up in the Mossad's gym. The operation deeply unsettled Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, whose son testified that he sank into deep depression afterward.

A magazine feature marking two years since the pager operation reveals new details about its planning and execution. The operation was carried out on September 17, 2024, when thousands of pager devices containing tiny explosive charges were detonated. The result: nearly 5,000 wounded, several hundred of them seriously, and more than 20 dead, including commanders in Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian ambassador, Mojtaba Amani, was also injured in the face and lost vision in one eye. The article describes how the idea was born years earlier in the mind of a female Mossad technology expert, but was previously rejected for budgetary reasons. With David Barnea's appointment as Mossad chief, he led a personnel reform and tasked a group of experts with creating a closed circuit of explosives inside a pager. Around 2022, one of the technologists succeeded in developing the circuit and received the Israel Security Prize for it. By October 7, 2023, 500 devices had been produced. After that Saturday, Barnea ordered production to be accelerated. An assembly and production line was set up inside the Mossad's gym, which was cleared of fitness equipment. Mossad personnel worked around the clock to embed the explosives in the devices. The operation deeply shook Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. His son Jawad said in an interview that his father "sank into deep depression" after the operation, and his daughter Zeinab said that when she asked her mother about her father's well-being, the mother replied: "He cried." Two days before his assassination, in a speech dubbed by the Mossad as "the last speech," Nasrallah described the explosion as "a severe and unprecedented security blow with no parallel."