Paging Hezbollah at Regal Riverstone

The documentary Paging Hezbollah is screening this week at the Regal Riverstone theater in Coeur d’Alene. Directed by Justin Folk and running 93 minutes (PG-13), the film examines the 2024 operation in which thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated nearly simultaneously across Lebanon and parts of Syria on September 17, followed the next day by explosions involving walkie-talkies.

The operation, widely attributed to Israel’s intelligence services, involved years of planning to insert modified devices into Hezbollah’s supply chain through front companies and intermediaries. Hezbollah had shifted toward pagers and similar equipment after concerns that cellular phones were being monitored. The film presents the sequence as an effort to disrupt the group’s communications network while attempting to limit effects beyond the individuals carrying the devices. Lebanese authorities reported roughly a dozen deaths, including some civilians, and nearly 3,000 injuries.

Paging Hezbollah draws on interviews with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-Mossad director David Barnea, former CIA director David Petraeus, and others involved in or familiar with the planning. It combines those accounts with archival material and dramatized segments to cover the engineering challenges, the steps taken to maintain cover as suspicions grew, the decision to activate the devices, and the broader context of the conflict that intensified after the October 7, 2023 attacks. Petraeus has described the approach as a modern-day Trojan horse. Folk, whose earlier work includes the documentaries What Is a Woman? and Am I Racist?, has said the goal was to document the operational details from the people who planned and carried it out.

For members of The Veterans Club, the film offers a detailed look at a contemporary intelligence operation that relied on supply-chain access, technical modification of everyday equipment, and careful timing rather than a conventional strike. It addresses questions of target selection, the practical difficulties of operating against a group embedded in civilian areas, and the trade-offs involved in designing an effect that prioritized disruption over broader destruction. Viewers can evaluate the account for themselves against other reporting on the events.

Showtimes are available on the Regal Riverstone site or the theater’s app. The film is also listed on paginghezbollah.com, which includes a trailer and additional background. Those interested in the mechanics of modern operations may find it worth a trip to the theater this week.