Taiwan’s government has said none of the components in the thousands of pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah that exploded in Lebanon earlier this week were made on the island.
Fragments of the exploded pagers had labels pointing to Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo. But the company has denied manufacturing the tools used in the attack.
The Lebanese government says Tuesday’s blasts killed 12 people, including two children, and injured nearly 3,000.
The incident, along with another attack that blew up walkie-talkies, was blamed on Israel and marked a major escalation in the conflict between the two sides.
“The components for Hezbollah’s pagers are not manufactured by us,” Taiwan’s Economy Minister Guo Jih-hui told reporters on Friday.
He also said that the judicial inquiry is already underway.
“I want to find out the truth because Taiwan has never exported this particular pager model,” said Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Hsia-lung.
Earlier this week, Gold Apollo boss Hsu Ching-kuang denied his business had anything to do with the attacks.
He claimed to have licensed his trademark to BAC Consulting in Hungary to use the Gold Apollo name on their own pagers.
Attempts by the BBC to contact the BAC have so far been unsuccessful. Its CEO Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono told US news agency NBC she had no knowledge and denied her company was making the pagers.
The Hungarian government has said BAC has “no production or operational base” in the country.
But the New York Times report, citing Israeli intelligence officials, said BAC was a shell company that operated as an Israeli front.
In another round of bombings on Wednesday, 20 people were killed and at least 450 injured when walkie-talkies exploded, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Japanese portable radio maker icom has moved away from walkie-talkies bearing its logo, saying it stopped production of the devices a decade ago.
Iran-backed Hezbollah accused Israel of “this criminal aggression” and vowed “simply revenge”.
The Israeli military declined to comment.
The two sides have been engaged in a cross-border war since the Gaza conflict erupted last October.
The difficulty in identifying the makers of the devices highlights how complex it is Global Electronics Supply Chain has become
