The pagers, which were being used by Hezbollah officials to communicate privately, detonated across the Lebanese capital on Tuesday, reportedly injuring thousands of people, including civilians and militant fighters.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the explosions, but the dramatic attack triggered an obvious question: how did they do it?
One theory is the explosions were the result of an unprecedented cyber attack, with hackers somehow overheating and destroying the pagers remotely.
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Another is supply chain sabotage, with Israel able to booby trap hundreds of pagers destined for use by Hezbollah.
A cyber attack could have involved manipulating these devices and causing their batteries to overheat. Lithium batteries will smoke or melt if overheated and can catch on fire, with past fires reported on gadgets including smartphones, e-bikes or scooters.
However, cyber security and military experts said such an attack would be unlikely to cause the kinds of sudden explosions seen in footage across social media.
Alan Woodward, a cyber security expert at the University of Surrey, said: “I’ve heard of lithium ion batteries spontaneously igniting but to make it happen on demand is a different matter entirely.”
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He said these kinds of batteries seemed to catch fire rather than “explode,” which contrasted with the social media footage.
A more likely cause was sabotage using an “old-fashioned booby trap”, he said.
He said it could have been an “supply chain attack” where the Israeli Defence Force “hid a little C4 (a type of explosive) inside and set it to trigger upon receipt of a particular message or even just timed using device timer”.
The impacted devices appeared to include “rugged” pagers developed by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, according to reporters at the website Bellingcat.
The pagers – small wireless communications devices designed to send short text messages –had been new models brought by officials at Hezbollah in recent months, multiple security sources also told Reuters.
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Tony Ingesson, a former bomb disposal expert with the Swedish armed forces and an assistant professor at Lund University, also supported the explosion theory.
“The footage I have seen indicates an explosive substance of some sort. A very small charge is enough to injure someone. You don’t need much. The advantage here is it is a device people will carry on their person,” he said.
Ken Munro, founder of cyber security company Pen Test Partners, said: “I’m leaning hard toward a supply chain attack, as to remotely cause a battery to explode in such a fashion would be extremely challenging.”
Footage on social media showed dozens of individuals being treated for injuries in the wake of the blasts, which occurred around 3.45pm local time, with wounds to their hands, fingers or torso.
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A former British army munitions officer told the BBC the devices could have been packed with as little as 10 to 20 grams of high explosive hidden inside fake electrical parts.
The former officer, who asked not to be named, said such a package could have been armed by a signal, with the next person to use the device triggering an explosion.
Bogdan Botezatu, head of threat research at cyber security company Bitdefender, said on X: “Hacked pagers and phones don’t randomly explode unless they are already attached to a nice ball of Semtex.
“Worst case, (lithium ion) batteries first catch on fire, then they go kaboom.”
A statement by the Iran-backed group said Israel would get “fair punishment”.
Hezbollah had been known to use pagers as a low-tech solution to avoid Israeli signals intelligence. Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, had previously urged fighters not to carry mobile phones, warning they were “deadly agents”.
He has previously said that smartphones were “surveillance devices in your pockets. If you are looking for the Israeli agent, look at the phone in your hands”.
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The Wall Street journal reported that medical staff across Lebanon were discarding their own pagers, which are routinely used in hospitals around the world to send rapid text messages to colleagues.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency blamed the attack on the “handheld pagers system [which] was detonated using advanced technology”.
Hezbollah officials, meanwhile, said the attack represented the group’s “biggest security breach” since Oct 7 last year.
Last week JPMorgan made headlines by announcing it planned to cap its junior bankers’ working week to 80 hours (“High pressure, long days, crushing workloads: why is investment banking like this?”, FT Alphaville, FT.com, September 13).
The media and most western professionals and other workers will see that figure as extraordinarily high — but the small print makes clear that the cap will not apply when junior bankers are working on “live” deals.
The 80-hour working week, it seems, is the routine baseline expectation.
Former investment banker Craig Coben, author of the FT Alphaville piece, outlined the history and factors that make the long-hours culture a seemingly intractable fact of life across the investment banking industry — and other related sectors such as Big Law.
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As investment banking is a bespoke service the work cannot fit into a standard nine-to-five schedule. The question is: does this bespoke service require regular “all-nighters”?
Is this really the most efficient approach? Research shows that working long hours does not improve productivity. Studies document diminishing returns after a certain threshold — typically around 50 hours per week.
Coben also pointed to the mega-salaries junior bankers earn. In the end, there is no such thing as a free lunch in life.
They know what they are getting themselves into. The reality may not be as glamorous as it seems. Assuming an entry salary of £90,000, as indicated in the article, an 80-hour working week for 47 weeks a year — admittedly a very basic calculation — junior bankers would earn a higher hourly rate by doing private tutoring!
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Yes, this is partly down to the nature of the business but it is also a self-perpetuating culture that is blocking efforts to at least mitigate its worst excesses.
Addressing this could, in fact, positively impact productivity as well.
Sonia Falconieri Professor in Corporate Finance, Bayes Business School (formerly Cass), London EC1, UK
“We asked for a thorough investigation,” says Olivia.
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“That’s definitely what they’ve done as it’s been a while now.
“I hope the FA do the right thing.
“It’s important we don’t skim over what happened.”
Regardless of the outcome, the 25-year-old says there’s no way things can stay the same in women’s football.
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“I’d like to think that after what’s happened to my sister, there’s no way there can’t be any change.
“Maddy ultimately lost her life and her spirit to football and it’s important that nobody else goes through that.”
Maddy’s family has launched a foundation in her name to support women and girls in football and hopes to be a voice for them too.
“You can’t bury your head in the sand,” says Olivia.
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“You need to stand up for these girls and stand up for Maddy ultimately as well.
“We just really wanted to find what was missing and give these girls a voice.”
They recently hit a £50,000 milestone, something Olivia says she “never even dreamed of”.
“It made me really proud,” she says.
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“I thought, we could really change the game here and change young girls’ lives.”
‘I’m going to be like Maddy’
Some of the money raised goes towards supporting girls like eight-year-old Neveah, who idolised Maddy.
Neveah’s mum, Beth, tells Newsbeat the love started when she was assigned the same number football shirt.
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“She’d see Maddy play and say, ‘Mum that’s me – I’m number eight, I’m going to be like Maddy’.”
Last year, Neveah was a mascot for Sheffield United and chose to walk out with Maddy, which Beth says helped to “grow her love of football”.
When Maddy died, Beth says Neveah “took it really hard” and, in December, the foundation offered to pay for her to have new boots – something the family had done for Maddy every Christmas.
Since then it has also sponsored her kit.
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“She was very touched by that,” Beth says.
“We always get in touch with the family because she likes to tell them how many goals she’s scored for Maddy.”
Although Neveah is sometimes the only girl on the pitch, she is generally supported and encouraged in the sport, says Beth.
But she knows that might not always be the case, and that is why the work of the foundation is so important.
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“[Girls] need to know that support is available for them,” she says.
“I just hope Neveah’s journey through football, however long it is, continues to be positive.”
Olivia says her sister was “loved and adored and an inspiration to so many”.
“My main focus with the foundation is to carry that on for as long as I can and to bring her to life for as long as I can as well.”
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There will be a vigil for Maddy later and she will also be remembered at a match between Sheffield United and Derby County – the club Maddy supported – on Saturday.
“She would’ve been there for sure,” Olivia says of her big sister. “With a beaming smile.”
A spokesperson for Sheffield United told Newsbeat they were pleased to mark the anniversary with the match.
“The thoughts of everyone associated with Sheffield United Football Club remain with the Cusack family, as well as Maddy’s friends, colleagues and team-mates,” they added.
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The FA said it would not be appropriate to comment while it was still investigating.
If you’ve been affected by the issues raised in this article, help and support is available via BBC Action Line.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.
No publication has bettered the FT for the coverage of Boeing’s downward and tragic flight path resulting from putting financial engineering (sic) before real engineering. Rereading John Gapper’s piece about the revival of Rolls-Royce’s fortunes (Opinion, September 13) I was surprised to see no words of caution about the possible consequences of too much “squeezing” of a product that must work perfectly throughout its life, and no warning on the potential for a Boeing outcome.
For me, I am always reassured when I look out from a window seat to see the classic black and silver RR logo on the engine housing. Long may this continue.
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