Taiwan's Gold Apollo says it did not make pagers used in deadly Lebanon blasts
Company says it was a victim of incident, which has killed at least 12
The model of pagers used in detonations in Lebanon were made by Budapest-based BAC Consulting, Taiwanese pager firm Gold Apollo said on Wednesday, noting it had only licensed out its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices.
The death toll rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday. The attack wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the group's fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut.
Hezbollah fighters began using pagers in the belief they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters this year.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military declined to comment on the blasts. The two sides have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October.
Washington said it was not involved in the incidents.
"The United States did not know about, nor was it involved in, these incidents. We're still gathering the information and gathering the facts," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday at a news conference in Cairo.
Company unaware pagers rigged
Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo.
"The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it," Gold Apollo founder and president Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters at the company's offices in the northern Taiwanese city of New Taipei on Wednesday.
WATCH l Taiwanese exec distances company from altered devices:
The company said in a statement that the AR-924 model was produced and sold by BAC Consulting.
The stated address for BAC Consulting in Hungary's capital Budapest was a peach building on a mostly residential street in an outer suburb. The company name was posted on the glass door on an A4 sheet.
A person at the building who asked not to be named said BAC Consulting was registered there but did not have a physical presence. The CEO of BAC Consulting, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, says on her LinkedIn profile that she has worked as an adviser for various organizations including UNESCO. She did not respond to emails from Reuters.
Hsu said earlier there had been problems with remittances from the firm.
"The remittance was very strange," he said, saying that payments had come through the Middle East. He did not elaborate further.
Hsu said he did not know how the pagers could have been rigged to explode.
While Hsu was meeting with reporters, police officials arrived at the company. Officials from Taiwan's Economy Ministry also visited Gold Apollo.
The ministry said in a statement that there was no record of direct pager exports from Taiwan to Lebanon.
Hsu also said Gold Apollo was a victim of the incident and planned to sue the licensee.
"We may not be a large company but we are a responsible one," he said. "This is very embarrassing."
Hezbollah to continue strikes against Israel
Hezbollah, which has pointed the blame at Israel, said in a statement Wednesday morning that it would continue its normal strikes against Israel "as in all the past days" as part of what it describes as a support front for its ally, Hamas, and Palestinians in Gaza.
"This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday that it committed against our people, our families and our fighters in Lebanon," it said.
Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into Israel on Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the ongoing war in Gaza.
Since then, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged strikes near-daily, killing hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displacing tens of thousands on each side of the border.
At hospitals in Beirut on Wednesday, the chaos of the night before had largely subsided, but relatives of the wounded continued to wait.
Lebanon's Health Minister Firas Abiad told journalists during a tour of hospitals Wednesday morning that many of the wounded suffered "severe injuries to the eyes" and others had limbs amputated. Journalists were not allowed to enter hospital rooms or film patients.
With files from The Associated Press