The Author is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army

Foreign media described it as a non-nuclear explosion when thousands of coordinated pagers detonated across Lebanon, followed by walkie-talkie radio sets next day, leaving some 37 dead and thousands injured, including 200 in critical conditions (mostly maimed and some blinded) that included both Hezbollah fighters and civilians. The scale of damage stunned the world. Iran's Ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, lost one eye and suffered severe injuries to the other as a result of the pager explosions.

Planning by Mossad for this most secretive and covert operation (called Operation 'Below the Belt' according to some sources) began few years ago when Hezbollah Chief, Hassan Nasrallah began propagating that Hezbollah fighters should shun the use of cell phones that could pinpoint their locations by Israel's sophisticated technology to hack into phones, activating microphones and cameras remotely to spy on their owners. Pagers, therefore, came into wide use by Hezbollah.

Mossad reportedly established the firm which was under contract to produce electronic devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, masking the production of pagers for Hezbollah

Israel reportedly established the firm 'B.A.C. Consulting' in Hungary, which was under contract to produce electronic devices on behalf of 'Gold Apollo', a Taiwanese company. Mossad established at least two other shell companies to mask identities of the people producing the devices. BAC began shipping pagers to Lebanon in 2022; some 5,000 pagers were shipped before the explosions were triggered. The battery of each electronic device contained three grams of PETIN explosive. Israel activated the pagers to beep in a coordinated manner and sent a message to them in Arabic that appeared as though it had come from Hezbollah's senior leadership.

Following the explosions of the pagers and walkie-talkies, Israel's Chief of Staff has said, "We still have many capabilities, at every stage we operate we are already 2 stages ahead. At every stage the price in Hezbollah should be high. We will make it so that terrorists will be afraid of going to the toilet and even eating food."

There have been few cases in India of iPhones exploding but these have not been fatal. The moot question is can terrorists explode electronic devices similar to what Mossad did in Lebanon? The simple answer is yes, especially if they are state-supported. Most big nations are using terrorists as proxies and the latter have suicide bombers. A 'loaded' electronic device can also be abandoned in a hopping flight by a 'black ops' operative, discounting the need to hire a terrorist or a suicide bomber. Moreover, if terrorists can smuggle weapons aboard an aircraft for hijacking, where is the problem to get an electronic device on board?

Also, terrorist organisations today are well organised, tech-savvy and some of them are also using 3D printers. For them, configuring fissile-laden batteries may not be a problem. With the heightening war of civilization in the Middle East and the West, terrorist organisations may be already planning for it. Getting the loaded devices to the target and their coordinated activation without raising suspicion no doubt is complex, but this is a matter of finesse. This Mossad operation would open a new phase of low-cost 5th Generation Warfare. It has demonstrated that all smart gadgets, or 'Internet of Things' devices can be weaponised.

Israel activated the pagers to beep in a coordinated manner and sent a message in Arabic that appeared to come from Hezbollah's senior leadership before triggering explosions

The consequences of a weaponised electronic device exploding on a flight, which may not be very far off, are obvious. There will be utter confusion in the aviation sector. Banning electronic devices both in checked-in and hand baggage may become essential, however impractical. Tourism will also go for a six unless technology is developed to scan the battery of every device for explosives. Chaos will prevail.

India should acknowledge that if China has not gone in already to weaponise electronic devices, akin to those used by Israel to attack Lebanon, it certainly should be expected to do so. As it is, China's cyber prowess is well established, as well as its propensity to insert trapdoors malware at the manufacturing stage in cell phones, laptops and other possible devices.

The US recently disrupted a group of Chinese hackers that infiltrated thousands of devices; hackers working for Integrity Technology Group, a company based in Beijing (known as 'Flax Typhoon' in the private sector) used the infected devices to form a botnet to launch additional attacks. Malware was installed on some 2,00,000 consumer devices in the US and elsewhere, which infected utilities including cameras, video recorders, and home and office routers.

India should acknowledge that if China has not already weaponised electronic devices, similar to Israel's attack on Lebanon, it should be expected, given China's cyber prowess

In India, we don't have 100 per cent checks even for imported items for embedded malware at the manufacturing stage. Most CCTVs, including in many sensitive areas, are Chinese or Chinese-origin, being cheap. How many China-manufactured drones are in India? We have allowed Chinese investments in the electronic sector and eased visas for Chinese technicians. Chinese are not being given a larger stake in ventures in India and Chinese are denied important posts, but Chinese are past masters in surreptitious third party operations. Colonel Hunny Bakshi wrote on X: "30k Samsung phones purchased for Project 'Sambhav' has all the signs of an Intel operation. The entire IA leadership locations would be nicely mapped. I had raised the flag a few months back. Unless we own our own, no one is safe. BSNL network is based on Chinese equipment."

India's FDI inflows have fluctuated over the years, with the highest annual inflow of $84.83 billion in 2021-2022. However, India's net FDI inflow dropped by 62.17 per cent to $10.58 billion in 2023-2025, a 17 year low. Perhaps because of this we are looking for Chinese investments in India, which has been relatively small, with only 0.37 per cent share of total FDI equity inflow from 2000 to 2024.

The US is in the process of banning Chinese electric vehicles and battery-operated devices. But Lebanon's pager and walkie-talkie radio explosions have raised massive demands for Chinese electronic devices in the Middle East, who want to shun the West for such items fearing they could be weaponised. In our case, India needs to be Atamnirbhar in every component of electronic and other devices. Utmost caution is required in dealing with Beijing, given that China is capable of using radical Islamist organisations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, some of whom have been calling for Ghazwa-e-Hind, to launch attacks in India.