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The Japanese maker of the brand of walkie-talkies linked to yesterday’s deadly blasts in Lebanon has said it ceased making the model a decade ago.

Most of the devices still on sale were counterfeit, said ICOM director Yoshiki Enomoto.

He added it would be impossible to lace them with explosives during manufacturing.

“There’s no way a bomb could have been integrated into one of our devices during manufacturing. The process is highly automated and fast-paced, so there’s no time for such things.”

Mr Enomoto continued: “If it turns out to be counterfeit, then we’ll have to investigate how someone created a bomb that looks like our product. 

“If it’s genuine, we’ll have to trace its distribution to figure out how it ended up there.”

Netanyahu assassination plot suspect made ‘error of judgement’, says lawyer

Earlier we brought you news that the Israeli security agency Shin Bet said it arrested an Israeli businessman on suspicion of involvement in an Iranian-backed plot to assassinate Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli defence minister or the head of Shin Bet.

Now a lawyer for the unnamed man has told Hebrew-language media his client made “an error of judgment”, reported the Times of Israel.

“We have not yet seen the investigative materials, so at this stage it is difficult to go into the details of the case,” said lawyer Eyal Besserglick.

“It can already be said that this is a person who has greatly assisted the security services of the State of Israel, whose children serve in the security forces, and who made an error in judgment in the context of his business.”

Analysis: Blasts have exposed thousands of people that are part of Hezbollah network

The blasts across Beirut have exposed thousands of people who are part of Hezbollah’s network, Sky News’s military analyst Sean Bell says.

It’s usually difficult to know “how tendrils of organisations like Hezbollah extend” but he says the attack has raised questions about “why would you have one of these old bits of kit [a pager] unless you needed to be part of that comms network”.

The attack “will therefore undermine Hezbollah’s organisation, its command and control net,” he says, and leave members of the group wondering “what else can I use and what’s going to happen next?”

Asked if this represents the next phase of the war in the Middle East, Mr Bell says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has said the war against Hamas in Gaza is over, he’s now turning his attention up to the friction in the north”.

He explains: “He’s moving, redeploying troops up there and basically, this is a rallying call, really, to say that if [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah wants to pick a fight, we’ll be ready.”