Exploding walkie-talkies in Lebanon may have been made by Japanese firm

OSAKA — A Japanese communication equipment maker said Thursday that walkie-talkies which simultaneously exploded in Lebanon the previous day may have been a discontinued model it formerly sold, but with modified batteries.

Osaka-based Icom Inc said it is investigating details including its overseas distribution network, after the walkie-talkies detonated in and around the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Wednesday, killing 20 and injuring over 250 people.

"We cannot rule out the possibility that they are fakes, but there is also a chance the products are our IC-V82 model," said Icom Director Yoshiki Enomoto. The company sold some 160,000 units of the model domestically and overseas before terminating sales in 2014.

Images of the devices showing severe explosion damage to their battery area indicate the power packs may have been replaced with ones that were modified to explode, Enomoto said.

While Icom has business units in Europe, it is not clear how the products ended up in the Middle East, the company said.

"It is difficult to determine the distribution channels without checking the serial numbers" of the products, Enomoto said.

Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah often used the devices, according to Reuters, with the explosions following a similar incident on Tuesday when multiple pagers blew up at the same time and killed at least 12 people.

A Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo Co, which has been linked to the pagers, has denied making and exporting the products, saying Hungarian-based firm BAC Consulting KFT produced and sold the devices under license with the Gold Apollo brand.

"Our company only provides the brand trademark authorization and is not involved in the design or manufacturing of these products," Gold Apollo said in a statement Wednesday before its president was summoned for questioning by Taiwanese authorities the following day.

In a statement, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said the island does not directly export the type of pagers in question to Lebanon. It said Gold Apollo exported around 260,000 sets of pagers between 2022 and August 2024 mainly to European countries and the United States.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged after the two incidents to return residents to their homes in his country's northern border areas after they were evacuated due to cross-border fighting with Hezbollah combatants. He did not confirm whether Israel is behind the exploding walkie-talkie and pagers.

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