NOWHERE’S SAFE
Moment Hezbollah walkie-talkie explodes at funeral of pager victims as 20 killed in second wave of booby-trap blasts
Israel has declared a 'new phase of war' and deployed troops to its border with Lebanon following the attacks
THIS IS the moment a Hezbollah radio explodes during a funeral for three of the terror group's fighters in Lebanon.
At least 20 died on Wednesday and over 450 were wounded when a series of walkie-talkies detonated across southern Lebanon, the Health Ministry said.
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One of the explosions struck a Hezbollah funeral for a child and three militants who were killed on Tuesday during an initial wave of remote-controlled pager blasts carried out by Israeli spies.
Israel has yet to officially claim responsibility for the deadly double-tap hack but it has deployed troops to the northern border with Lebanon.
Footage shows the funeral ceremony with hundreds of mourners clad in black against a backdrop of Hezbollah's trademark yellow and green.
Several people - who appear to be dressed in Hezbollah fighting gear and yellow sashes - are in the centre as the explosion goes off.
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A cloud of smoke billows out as the vast crowd separates and scrambles backwards.
As it clears someone can be seen rolling around on the ground and others rush to his side.
Wednesday's blasts came just a day after 12 people, including two children, were killed when Israel detonated explosives nestled inside thousands of "brand-new" Hezbollah pagers.
One of them was a nine-year-old girl.
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Mossad spooks intercepted a shipment ordered by Hezbollah months before the attack and detonated them by sending a coded message, a Lebanese security source and a second source told Reuters.
The device blasts will further stoke tensions in the Middle East in what officials fear could be a "pre-emptive strike" ahead of a wider escalation.
Defence minister Yoav Gallant declared the start of a "new phase" of war on Wednesday and praised the work of Israeli security agents as "very impressive" after IDF troops began moving north.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to return all evacuated citizens to the northern border areas.
Local reports said a number of wireless devices exploded in Baalbek, northeast of Lebanon capital Beirut, after their owners threw them into the streets on Wednesday evening.
Solar equipment, fingerprint devices and radios also reportedly exploded in the city and other parts of Lebanon.
The White House said it is too soon to tell whether the explosions will affect ongoing ceasefire talks in Gaza.
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Brit-educated pager firm boss denies knowledge of bomb plot
BY Nick Parker, Foreign Editor
THE British-educated boss of the firm said to have manufactured the pagers denied any knowledge of the bomb plot yesterday.
Glamorous Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, who lists “disaster management” as a skill, is listed as the chief executive of Hungarian company BAC Consulting KFT.
She said: “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediary. I think you got it wrong.”
Barsony-Arcidiacono who is in her 40s, lived in Gospel Oak, North London, during 13 years in the UK, studying at various universities.
The businesswoman speaks seven languages and claims to specialise in resolving “conflict issues”.
She did a PhD in physical sciences at University College London between 2002 and 2006, before a masters in sustainable development for management of natural resources from 2009 to 2014.
She then studied for a diploma in politics at the London School of Economics from 2015 to 2017.
She says she also worked as an evaluation expert at the European Commission.
On her LinkedIn profile, she describes having “with love devoted myself to science and development”.
She boasts she can “lead/strategise/catalyse environmental, political and development programs of broad scope and complexity”.
She also says she “enjoys working in a multicultural environment where passion, integrity and humour are valued”.
Hezbollah reportedly acquired their pagers after the group's leadership ordered members to stop using phones.
Top brass in the militant group warned its fighters their phones could be tracked by Israeli spies - making pagers the safer option.
At about 3:30pm local time on Tuesday, the gadgets started heating up and blew up in people's hands or pockets, wreaking havoc.
Around 2,800 were injured including hundreds of fighters, senior commanders in the terror group and the Iranian ambassador in Beirut.
Eye witnesses on Wednesday reported explosions and serious injuries among mourners at the funeral of four of the previous day’s victims in Beirut.
Panicking Hezbollah fighters were seen tearing the batteries from their walkie-talkies and tossing them into a pile on the ground as ambulances raced to the scene.
An apartment building and vehicles were also seen on fire as sirens wailed for a second day across the Lebanese capital.
Sources revealed on Wednesday night that the radios had been bought and shipped to the group’s quartermasters in February at the same time as the sabotaged pagers.
Analysts believe the new attack was the second phase or an Israeli masterplan to paralyse their Lebanese enemy’s communication before launching a massive attack.
Three people were reported killed in Hezbollah’s Bekaa Valley stronghold and at least 100 injured in the second wave of strikes, which experts concluded were the work of Israel.
Iran-backed Hezbollah leader chief Hassan Nasrallah ruled months ago that mobile phones were too easy to trace and ordered their replacement with old-tech pagers.
But the move appears to have backfired spectacularly after Israeli Mossad spy chiefs somehow infiltrated the supply chain and sabotaged both the beepers and walkie talkie devices.
An eye witness in Beirut said as walking wounded filled city streets: "We went out to the streets, and we found the suburb as if it was a zombie city."
The latest attack left Hezbollah’s command and control centres in total chaos - forcing them to rely on written messages delivered by couriers.
And tension soared amid speculation that the twin attacks could herald a ground offensive to drive Hezbollah away from Israel’s border and halt daily rocket, drone and missile barrages.
Sources revealed on Wednesday that Mossad agents blitzed its enemy by planting slivers of high explosives in fighters’ pagers, sources revealed yesterday.
Up to 5,000 pagers were intercepted by agents and had around 3g of PETN plastic explosive - less than the weight of a square of chocolate - attached to their batteries.
Assassins waited months for the devices to be shipped to Lebanon and distributed among terror troops, commanders and officials linked to the Iran-backed group.
A self-destruct signal was then sent to the devices causing the batteries to overheat and explode in the pockets and kit bags of militiamen.
A delay was programmed into the fiendish attack, causing the pagers to beep for around 10 seconds before erupting when victims raised them to their faces to read messages.
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Many who did not react quickly suffered leg and hand injuries in the blasts across the Iranian-backed terrorist army’s strongholds in Lebanon.
But some of those who held beepers at eye level to read messages on their LED screens suffered serious head injuries.
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Israel launched spy movie pager plot to lure Hezbollah into war…& destroy them once and for all, ex-Mossad agent warns
BY James Halpin, Foreign News Reporter
ISRAEL'S pager plot could be inspired by a spy film and the country is goading Hezbollah into starting a war, an ex-Mossad agent says.
Nearly 3,000 people were injured on Tuesday and 12 were killed in the sabotage attack leaving Lebanon in chaos and hospitals full of bloodied and injured.
Avner Avraham claims Israel is directly challenging Hezbollah to start a war in retaliation, so it can then invade Lebanon and wipe them out.
Avraham says the chess move attack was Israel saying: "Don't mess with us".
He said: "The attack on Tuesday was so strong and wide if they [Hezbollah] do start a limited war, they will lose immediately.
"In the north, we have to start a limited war and we prefer that Hezbollah would make the first mistake.
"The response would be a huge damage to Lebanon, it would go 100 years back."
But, the 28-year spy veteran says Hezbollah has been left weak with so many people injured and Lebanon plunged into chaos.
"Now they don't have a different kind of communication system, all their hospitals are full with injured people, this is the best time to attack them."
Avraham said he believed Israel needed to attack Lebanon and create a "dead zone" inside the country where nobody lived.
That buffer would provide safety for the Israelis living in the north of the country - tens of thousands of whom have been displaced since fighting began last year.
"To bring back the families to the north, you cannot bring them to the world without destroying and pushing all the Hezbollah from the border."
Avraham also said it is possible that the attack could have been inspired by gadgets used in spy films, something he did as an agent.
"Sometimes we use examples ideas from James Bond films, we took ideas, I can tell you this for sure.
He said: "No one could write the script for Tuesday. This is the real example of thinking outside the box... All the world saw what happened Tuesday, this is the money time.
"If Mossad is doing something and wants to declare it, they will declare it... In all cases they just do it and disappear.
"That's the whole idea, you don't know who is responsible for this, you don't have any idea."
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