Emirates bans pagers and walkie-talkies on planes

“All passengers traveling on flights to, from or via Dubai are prohibited from carrying pagers and walkie-talkies in checked or hand luggage,” Emirates said in a statement on Friday.

It added that “Such items found in passengers’ hand luggage or checked bags will be confiscated by the Dubai Police.”

When asked for more details, Emirates did not immediately offer a comment.

In an Israeli spy operation, Hezbollah paging and walkie-talkies paired with explosives were detonated last month, killing 37 people and injuring nearly 3,000.

Sources said Washington Post that the operation began in 2022, although Israel’s spy service Mossad first began planting walkie-talkies with traps in Lebanon in 2015.

Those devices helped Israel eavesdrop on Hezbollah’s conversations and were also an option for use as bombs in the event of a future crisis.

Then, in 2023, a Middle Eastern marketing executive provided Taiwanese-branded Apollo pagers to Hezbollah, but was unaware that they were assembled in Israel under Mossad supervision and contained a battery pack with a tiny amount of high explosive. Post.

The pagers were also designed so that two buttons had to be pressed to trigger the explosion, ensuring that both hands would be injured, the report added.

Meanwhile, travel continues to be restricted in the region as tensions rise. Emirates said flights to Lebanon will remain suspended until October 15 as Israel steps up attacks against Hezbollah with some airstrikes near Beirut airport.

Flights to Iran and Iraq will remain suspended until Tuesday. That’s because expectations are high that Israel will soon retaliate against Tehran for its latest barrage of missiles.

A Middle East security expert recently predicted that Israel-Iran conflict will be the new long-term normal.

“I think the question is simply going to be how often it’s going to happen and whether it’s going to be simple, or it’s going to continue to escalate,” Carmiel Arbit, Atlantic Council Middle East programs senior fellow, said Thursday at Bloomberg TV. “And I think the hope of the international community right now is to avoid a third world war, rather than this smaller-scale war of attrition.”