Overview

• The Associated Press’s August feature presented first-person accounts from six Lebanese individuals—including fighters, relatives and children—wounded when rigged pagers exploded across Lebanon on Sept. 17, 2024.
• Survivors described lasting disabilities such as lost eyes and fingers, dozens of surgeries and ongoing rehabilitation that highlight the operation’s human toll.
• Right-leaning outlets and U.S. lawmakers, including Reps. Claudia Tenney and Mike Collins, have condemned the story as propaganda that sympathizes with terrorists and called for revoking AP credentials.
• Israel maintains the covert strike was a lawful, high-precision counterterrorism measure engineered to detonate only in the hands of Hezbollah operatives and underscored its success by gifting a golden pager to President Trump.
• Human rights organizations continue to challenge the legality of booby-trap tactics, intensifying debate over ethical boundaries in modern warfare and journalistic responsibility.