An ambulance transporting injured people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), following the pager explosions, on Sept. 17, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L’Orient Today)
Israel's September 2024 exploding pagers attack in Lebanon — in which thousands of rigged handheld communication devices used by Hezbollah were detonated, killing nearly 40 people, including children and healthcare workers, and wounding nearly 4,000 — will be made into a movie, according to an exclusive report published by Deadline on Tuesday.
In two weeks, Beverly Hills-based production company Bleiberg Entertainment will be launching sales for the film, titled "Frequency of Fear" at the American Film Market in Los Angeles, a major yearly film industry event for pitching, acquiring and financing films.
Bleiberg Entertainment was founded and is run by Israeli-American Ehud Bleiberg, whose producer credits include "In the Land of Saints and Sinners" starring Liam Neeson and a documentary, "Riding with a Spy," about an Israeli whistleblower who, while serving in the Israeli Army, leaked 2,000 classified documents.
Bleiberg Entertainment has brought on Israeli-born U.S.-based director Danny Abeckaser and Canadian screenwriter Kosta Kondilopoulos for the project, which is in pre-production. Abeckaser, Kondilopoulos and Bleiberg had already collaborated on the recent film "Mob Cops" which was a critical and box-office failure.
“I, like everyone else who heard about the beeper operation, was in awe,” Abeckaser commented to Deadline. “To be able to tell the story of how they pulled it off was a dream come true.” The attack was condemned by human rights organizations and the United Nations and even top spy chiefs as unlawful, indiscriminate and disproportionate. It left thousands of people maimed, blinded and handicapped.
The cast for "Frequency of Fear" reportedly includes actors from the Israeli Netflix series, Fauda, — which was one of the most streamed shows in Lebanon during the release of its fourth season — Doron Ben-David and Itzik Cohen, as well as singer Marina Maximilian, and Quentin Tarantino’s wife, Daniella Pick Tarantino.
Israel did not initially admit its involvement until November 2024, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet he had greenlighted the operation. During his February 2025 trip to Washington, Netanyahu gifted U.S. President Donald Trump a “golden pager” mounted onto a piece of olive wood from a tree stolen from Lebanon. The plaque read “To President Donald J. Trump, Our greatest friend and greatest ally. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
