Israel's spy agency, Mossad, spent years orchestrating Hezbollah walkie-talkie, pager plots
By Lesley Stahl, Aliza Chasan, Shachar Bar-On, Jinsol Jung
After nearly a year of war between Israel and the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, Lebanon was sent reeling in September when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members exploded.
Two recently retired senior Mossad agents, who were among those spearheading the years-long operation, detailed the inside story of how they built the devices and got them into Hezbollah hands, shifting the course of Israel's escalating war with the Iran-backed group. The walkie-talkie and pager plots had a profound ripple effect: weakening Iran by leaving its proxy empire in ruins, with Hezbollah crushed in Lebanon and the Assad regime toppled in Syria.
"We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are," said Michael, who agreed to speak with 60 Minutes while masked and using a false name. "We can't use the pagers again because we already did that. We've already moved on to the next thing. And they'll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is."
