Israeli Journalist Threatens Ireland With Pager Explosions After Match Defeat
Yevgeny Zarubinsky sparked widespread outrage after publishing a post about “activating pagers” allegedly planted in Ireland following the Irish national team’s 3–0 victory over Israel. The remark referred to the 2024 operation in which communication devices exploded across Lebanon.
The Israeli journalist and media personality caused a major controversy on social media after posting what was later shown to be a satirical message following Ireland’s victory. In it, he spoke of “activating” pagers that Israel had supposedly planted in Ireland, alluding to the operation attributed to Israel in Lebanon in 2024.
Following the match, played in the Hungarian city of Debrecen on September 27 as part of the UEFA Nations League, Zarubinsky—known on X as @ivgiz—wrote: “Come on, it’s time to activate the pagers we planted in Ireland,” according to websites that monitored his posts.
The statement prompted an angry reaction, particularly in Ireland, because of its connection to the explosions of thousands of pagers and wireless communication devices in Lebanon in September 2024. The operation, which was attributed to Israel, killed and injured numerous people, including civilians.
The post appeared amid already heightened political tensions between Ireland and Israel and followed a match accompanied by protests over the war in Gaza.
Before the fixture, there had been debate in Ireland over whether the national team should play against Israel. Several players adopted symbolic gestures during the match in solidarity with Gaza. All wore black armbands and lowered their heads during the Israeli national anthem, while others had chosen to boycott the game.
Social media users shared the post widely, with some incorrectly identifying its author as an Israeli government official who had threatened Ireland with an attack similar to the pager operation in Lebanon.
Subsequent fact-checking reports clarified that this conclusion was false.
On his X account, Zarubinsky describes himself as a journalist and media personality involved in communication and satire. His biography also includes humorous titles such as “Head of the HKN Department at the Israeli Digital Defence Office” and “strategic communications, memes and regional chaos”.
A fact-check conducted by Lead Stories confirmed that the supposed “Israeli Digital Defence Office” is not an Israeli government institution and that Zarubinsky is not an official at either Israel’s Foreign Ministry or Defence Ministry.
Other sources have described him as a comedian, social media personality and consultant specialising in communications and strategy.
Those clarifications do not alter the fact that the post itself was published from his account. It explicitly used the phrase “activate the pagers” in reference to the operation that shook Lebanon in September 2024.
The controversy did not end with the original post. Zarubinsky continued to engage with his critics and later published another satirical message defending the idea of pagers that he claimed had been “distributed” across Ireland. He jokingly referred to the time and money supposedly spent preparing them.
In Israel, Israel National News covered the controversy and described Zarubinsky as a comedian and social media personality. It noted that his post had caused an uproar in Ireland while stressing that he was not an Israeli government official.
Other Israeli websites also treated the post as a joke or an example of political satire. Social media posts nevertheless continued to identify him incorrectly as an official at Israel’s Defence or Foreign Ministry.
In Ireland, some of the strongest reactions came from journalists, activists and social media users.
Irish journalist Tadhg Hickey linked the post to the political controversy surrounding the match, while other users shared the remark as an example of provocative Israeli rhetoric towards Ireland.
One commenter accused Zarubinsky of having “just admitted that your war-crime-committing intelligence agencies planned acts of terrorism in Ireland”. The user warned that an attack of this kind could prompt European Union countries to impose major sanctions.
Another user condemned what they regarded as incitement to kill civilians, writing: “An Israeli calling for the massacre of innocent people again? Imagine the world’s collective shock at discovering how these people think.”
A third activist launched a fierce attack on Israel, writing that Israelis “cannot score goals” and, in the user’s words, can only “shoot innocent children”. The activist called for the harshest possible punishment. Other users criticised what they described as “boasting about war crimes” before threatening to kill innocent civilians in Ireland.
Zarubinsky’s reference was particularly sensitive in Ireland because of the government’s previous position on the pager operation.
In September 2024, then-Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin condemned the operation, saying it demonstrated a “deliberate disregard” for civilian life after communication devices exploded in populated areas of Lebanon.
The Irish Times also reported on the details of the operation, including the manufacture of the devices that were detonated and the civilian casualties, among them children.
There has been no indication that the Irish authorities treated Zarubinsky’s post as a genuine security threat or announced the discovery of any pagers planted in the country.
The controversy also came only days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displayed a pager during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The gesture was a symbolic reference to an operation that became one of the most prominent attributed to Israel during its war with Hezbollah.
