The Public Health Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Public Health in Lebanon announced an update on the toll from the aggressive bombings that targeted wireless devices today, Wednesday. According to the statement, the number of martyrs has risen to twenty, while the number of injured has exceeded four hundred and fifty.
The explosions occurred in several key locations considered strongholds of Hezbollah, including the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the eastern Bekaa region. The devices that exploded were communication devices relied upon by Hezbollah members for field communication, away from mobile devices that could be vulnerable to Israeli interception.
According to the *New York Times*, unnamed U.S. officials and others stated that the wireless paging devices that exploded were "manufactured by the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo and were rigged by Israel before reaching Lebanon." The newspaper clarified that the order received by Gold Apollo included about three thousand devices, most of which were of the model "AB 924," and that Israel tampered with them before they reached Lebanon by embedding a small amount of explosives inside each device.
In response to these claims, the founder of Gold Apollo, Hsu Ching Kwang, stated on Wednesday that the paging devices that exploded in Lebanon "were not manufactured by the company." Hsu added to reporters that the devices that exploded "were made by a company in Europe that has the right to use the Taiwanese company's brand."