Lebanon pager explosions: Thousands of wireless devices used by Hezbollah members exploded, killing at least nine people and injuring almost 3,000 others in Lebanon. According to a senior Lebanese security source, Israel's Mossad spy agency put explosives inside 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers or "beepers" asked by the Iran-backed group months prior to the blasts.

What are pagers?

A pager, also known as 'beeper,' is a small, portable device that receives short messages, typically numeric or alphanumeric, over a radio signal. Before cell phones became common, pagers were essential for professionals like doctors and journalists to get important messages, even in remote places.

How does a pager work?

Pagers worked simply yet effectively. When a message was sent over radio waves, the pager would make a distinctive beep to notify the user. The notification would then prompt the user to find a nearby public or landline phone and respond to the message. As technology improved, pagers evolved with small screens that could display short messages right on the device.

However, with the arrival of mobile phones in the 1990s, pagers' popularity began to decline. Mobile phones swiftly overtook pagers in terms of ease and versatility, causing them to become less popular in the late 1990s.

Why Hezbollah still relies on pagers? 

Iran-backed Hezbollah still uses pagers as a low-tech communication method to avoid Israeli location monitoring. According to reports, Israel's Mossad spy agency put explosives into 5,000 imported pagers. The devices, which were apparently ordered from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, were made by BAC, a firm allowed to use the Gold Apollo brand. These pagers were brought into Lebanon early this year.