Taiwan, Hungary deny making Hezbollah pagers

Budapest: Taiwan and Hungary on Wednesday denied making pagers that exploded while being used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, killing 12 people.

The New York Times, citing American and other anonymous officials, reported that Israel had inserted explosive material into a shipment of pagers from Taiwan’s Gold Apollo. Taiwanese prosecutors launched an investigation.

Gold Apollo denied producing the devices and instead pointed the finger at its Budapest-based partner BAC Consulting KFT.

But Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the company “is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary”.

“The referenced devices have never been in Hungary,” Kovacs said on X, formerly Twitter. He added the case “poses no national security risk” and Hungary was cooperating “with all relevant international partner agencies and organisations” in further investigations.