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So that Israel couldn't track their locations via cell networks. Sure you could use Signal or w/e but it's the cell IDs and knowing where people are that was the issue. The pagers do far less, if any, two way communication so it's not likely to give away location data.

Pagers don't have GPS devices embedded in them.

Apps (some more or less than others) represent a target for a nation state to pursue for information, graph analysis, bugging, etc.

Even a dumbphone with the GPS physically removed is going to be a lot easier to target than a one-way pager, since they are always chatting with the cell towers.

Pagers don’t have GPS devices embedded in them - that you know of.

If you can’t control your supply chain then that isn’t guaranteed.

After all, most pagers don’t contain explosive charges either.

Even dumb phones can be tracked by antenna triangulation, and I wouldn't be surprised if Israeli hackers are inside Lebanese phone networks...

GPS is receive only.

Because cellphones transmit, pagers don't.