Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has denied receiving advance information about the use of Taiwanese-branded pagers in the attack on members of the “Hezbollah“ Simultaneously throughout Lebanon.
“Taipei does not have this kind of relationship with Israel,” Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo said at a news conference, when asked whether Israel had informed Taiwan in advance of the attack, or whether there was any security or intelligence exchange between the two sides.
“Taiwan’s national security organs are paying close attention to the case and investigations by relevant departments are needed,” he added, stressing that “the government is closely monitoring developments.”
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo denied manufacturing the devices used in the attack, noting that it “allowed its brand to appear on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, but they were manufactured by BAC Consulting, a company based in Budapest, Hungary.”
For its part, the Hungarian authorities denied the veracity of these statements, stating that “the communications devices that were delivered to Lebanon were not supplied from Hungary, and that the company is a “commercial intermediary” that does not have manufacturing sites in the country.”
Israel, like most countries, does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory, but the two sides maintain de facto embassies and enjoy close, if unofficial, relations.
A senior Lebanese security source and another source both confirmed that the Israeli intelligence agency (Mossad) was the one who planted explosives inside the devices.
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2024-09-21 18:11:24