Hezbollah was previously forced to abandon high-tech devices and smartphones, which could easily be tracked. The Islamist group sought "armored" pagers and Israeli intelligence saw this as a great opportunity,

Israel and the terrorist organization Hezbollah had been in an escalating war for nearly a year, the Israeli spy agency Mossad launched one of the most daring and sophisticated deceptions in the history of counterintelligence: the pager plot,