Israel carried out part of its device attack targeting Hezbollah by concealing explosives inside the batteries of pagers brought into Lebanon, according to two high-ranking Lebanese security officials, who said the technology was so advanced that it was virtually undetectable. Lebanese security officials watched a series of controlled explosions of some of the weaponized pagers, as investigations into who manufactured the wireless communication devices and how they made their way into Hezbollah’s pockets continued. The pagers used in the controlled explosions were ones that were switched off at the time of the attack on September 17, which meant they did not receive the message that caused the compromised devices to detonate. Thousands of explosions struck Hezbollah members last week, targeting their pagers on Tuesday, and then walkie-talkies a day later. In all, the blasts killed at least 37 people, including some children, and injured nearly 3,000, according to Lebanese health authorities, many of them civilian bystanders. The attack blindsided the group, which had opted for analogue technologies after forgoing cell phones to avoid Israeli infiltration. One of the Lebanese security sources said the way in which the explosive material had been hidden inside the pagers’ batteries was so sophisticated that it could not be detected, but did not elaborate further as to what sort of checks the devices had gone through before entering the country. The second high-ranking security source said that he had examined one of the compromised pagers and witnessed its controlled explosion. He tsaid that the explosive material was “laced” inside the pager’s lithium battery and virtually undetectable. He added that he had never seen anything like it. “It had to be done in such a way to make it invisible,” Moorhouse said, adding that one way to do that could have been modifying the battery itself – implanting an electronic detonator and small explosive charge inside of its metal casing, which would have made it impossible to detect with imaging, for example X-rays. “These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons, simultaneously exploding across marketplaces, on street corners, and in homes as daily life unfolds,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk told the Security Council last Friday. “Authorities have reportedly dismantled unexploded devices in universities, banks, and hospitals.”