AOC Calls for Transparency Over Whether U.S. Had Role in Pager Bombings 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, pagers and small electronic devices belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon. The operation, allegedly carried out by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, killed at least 10 people — including one child — and injured thousands, according to reports from the Lebanese health ministry. 

The devices detonated in two waves at grocery stores, markets, homes, and even at a funeral. U.S. officials indicate the attack was a joint operation between Israeli intelligence forces and military. The attack is the latest bloody incident in a series of escalations between Hezbollah and Israel amid the backdrop of Israel’s ongoing siege against Gaza. Throughout the conflict, Hezbollah militants have backed Hamas, the extremist group controlling the Gaza strip, and leveled a series of remote military operations and rocket attacks against Israel. 

With Israel heavily reliant on U.S. military aid and support to carry out its operations, at least one member of Congress is calling for an investigation into whether the U.S. had any role in the planning and execution of this week’s bombings. 

“Israel’s pager attack in Lebanon detonated thousands of handheld devices across a slew of public spaces, seriously injuring and killing innocent civilians.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday. “This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.” 

“Congress needs a full accounting of the attack, including an answer from the State Department as to whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology,” she added. 

Both Israel and the United States are parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which prohibits the use of “booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.” The CCW also bars the use of such a device in “any city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians in which combat between ground forces is not taking place or does not appear to be imminent.” 
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How the booby traps made it into the hands of Hezbollah operatives — and whether the alleged exploding pagers were available for purchase by civilians — remains an open question. According to multiple reports, the devices were manufactured by a Hungarian company licensing the name of the Taiwan-based company Gold Apollo. 
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U.S. sources previously told Rolling Stone that the simultaneous detonations were likely not the result of a “hack” or cyberwarfare operation, but a retrofitting of the devices with small explosives before they were delivered to their targets. 

“The Israelis would have had to refit actual pagers with a small piece of DetaSheet [a plastic explosive] and a flat bridge-wire detonator, and then gotten them into Hezbollah’s supply chain,” one U.S. source with expertise in explosives and special operations said. “Even just an exploding bridge-wire detonator alone could cause damage — it’s like a blasting cap, just small and flat.”