TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / September 18, 2024
Taiwan has refuted claims that it exported wireless communication devices, specifically pagers, to Lebanon after an explosion killed at least 12 people and injured thousands on Tuesday.
Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company known for manufacturing pager radios, stated that the devices in question were actually produced and sold by its Hungarian partner, BAC, based in Budapest.
The Taiwanese Ministry of Economy reviewed Gold Apollo’s export data and confirmed that the company had shipped over 49,000 pager radios to the United States and European nations during the first eight months of the year.
However, there were no records of any direct exports to Lebanon, nor reports of explosions linked to these products. The ministry did note that modifications to the devices could have been made post-export.
In a public statement, Gold Apollo clarified that the AR924 pager model, implicated in the explosion, was manufactured under a licensing agreement with BAC.
Gold Apollo’s Director, Hsu Shing-Kuang, noted that the pagers were produced outside Taiwan and that the company had faced unusual money transfers related to these transactions, primarily through the Middle East, though no further specifics were provided.
Twelve people have died, including two children, and close to 3,000 were wounded in the attack, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
On Wednesday, the New York Times unveiled new details about how Israel rigged communication devices that exploded, resulting in the deaths and injuries of numerous Lebanese citizens.
According to the newspaper, informed officials revealed that Israel concealed explosives within a shipment of Taiwanese pagers that were imported into Lebanon.
Citing “an American and other officials”, the paper reported that “the pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon”.
“These pagers were likely modified in some way to cause these types of explosions — the size and strength of the explosion indicate it was not just the battery,” Mikko Hypponen, a research specialist at the software company WithSecure and a cybercrime adviser to Europol, was quoted as saying.
The report also suggests that earlier this year, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, “strictly limited the use of cell-phones, which he saw as increasingly vulnerable to Israeli surveillance”.
A new wave of explosions rocked southern Beirut and other areas in Lebanon on Wednesday, killing nine people and wounding at least 300.
This happened only one day after a major cyber-terror attack on Tuesday, which killed at least 12 people and wounded thousands.
The Lebanese Health Ministry stated on Wednesday that between 2,750 and 2,800 wounded people arrived at hospitals within half an hour.
The number of serious injuries reached about 300 while 460 surgeries have been performed so far, mostly on the eyes and face.
