Israel's Mossad spy agency has been accused of planting a small amount of explosives inside 5,000 pagers ordered by Hezbollah several months before they exploded.

The claims have been made by a Lebanese security source to Reuters, as reports stated that 3,000 Hezbollah pagers detonated across Lebanon yesterday (September 17).

The explosions led to 12 deaths, while more than 3,000 people have been wounded, including the group's fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut.

Pagers
– Getty Images

Hezbollah ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. Reuters reported that several sources said the devices were brought into Lebanon in the spring.

The group has been using the devices to evade location tracking from Israel. The pager was invented in the 1940s as a communications device. Pagers hit a peak in popularity during the 1980s and 1990s, before declining in the 2000s with the emergence of cheaper cell phones.

"The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It's very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner," the source told Reuters.

According to the Lebanese security source, the model impacted was the AP924. The device can receive and display text messages, but can't make telephone calls.

Gold Apollo has since denied that it produced the devices that exploded, claiming the devices were manufactured under license by a company called BAC, based in Hungary's capital Budapest.

"The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it," Hsu Ching-Kuang, founder, Gold Apollo, told reporters today in Taiwan.

Following the attack, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran has said it will retaliate against Israel. Israel has yet to comment on the explosions.

Israel has been involved in cross-border conflict with Hezbollah since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October last year. Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in Israel in surprise attacks on October 7, with more than 200 Israeli citizens kidnapped by the terrorist group.

Israel's government responded with military action, and at least 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to its Ministry of Health, with more than 60,000 wounded.