Pager attack on Hezbollah: A low-tech gadget blitz redraws the contours of the Israel-Iran conflict Premium

While it is unclear whether pagers were used to trigger blasts prior to the Hezbollah attack, there are several instances of remote detonators being used in conflict situations.

Scenes of people bleeding and being rushed into hospitals flashed on television screens and social media platforms on Tuesday (September 17, 2024) evening in Lebanon. The attack, targeted at armed group Hezbollah, killed at least nine and injured several thousands, including Iran’s envoy to Beirut. The Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the attack as an “Israeli aggression”.

CCTV footage of blasts in multiple parts of the Middle Eastern country surprised the Iran-backed Hezbollah as two of its fighters and an 8-year-old girl were killed. The militant group vowed to retaliate against Israel for the blasts. The simultaneous explosions occurred largely in the southern part of Lebanon—a Hezbollah stronghold. Israel’s military has declined to comment.

But the biggest surprise of this attack lies in the weapon used by the perpetrator. The devices behind the serial blasts were unsophisticated, low-tech gadgets: pagers.

Pagers, often called beepers, are communication devices that emerged in the mid-20th century. Their presence was eclipsed by the cellular phones that grew in popularity in the 1990s and 2000s. And subsequently, the dawn of the smartphone pushed the pagers into the shadows. But the humble, palm-sized device had its own strengths that played out well in specific circumstances.

Pagers operate using radio signals, which are transmitted by towers and received by the device. They function as either one-way or two-way systems. One-way pagers receive messages from a central transmitter but cannot send replies. That means a user can receive numeric or alphanumeric messages, and the device alerts them through a beep or vibration.

In a two-way system, the pagers are capable of handling communication in both directions. Users can receive and respond to messages, which makes them slightly more advanced, but these are still limited in functionality compared to modern smartphones.

Pagers rely on a network of radio towers that broadcast signals over a wide area. In many cases, they are more reliable than mobile phones in certain conditions because their communication system operates over simple, robust radio waves, often penetrating areas where cell coverage might be weak.