Copyright Deadline
EXCLUSIVE: A covert Israeli operation aimed at decimating Islamist militant group Hezbollah, in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies in the possession of its operatives exploded simultaneously in Lebanon in September 2024, is being made into a movie. Bleiberg Entertainment will launch sales at the AFM on the spy thriller entitled Frequency of Fear, which is currently in post-production. The cast gathers Fauda stars Doron Ben-David, Itzik Cohen and Marina Maximilian, as well Quentin Tarantino’s wife, the singer and actress Daniella Pick Tarantino (The Perfect Gamble). Israel-born U.S. actor-director-producer Danny A. Abeckaser is directing and producing from a script by Kosta Kondilopoulos. The duo has worked together previously on films including Inside Man and The Engineer, both starring Emile Hirsch. ““I, like everyone else who heard about the beeper operation, was in awe. To be able to tell the story of how they pulled it off was a dream come true,” commented Abeckaser. The infamous two-part operation, which killed more than 40 people and injured another 3,400, was condemned by Lebanon, the United Nations and human rights NGOs, but also intrigued the world for its ingenuity. Israel did not confirm its involvement in the immediate aftermath of the detonations, which came after months of Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel, which had ratcheted up in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Southern Israel. But a myriad of investigative media reports revealed an intricate plot in which Mossad agents successfully distributed thousands of explosive-laden pagers and walkie-talkies to Hezbollah operatives, having infiltrated a trusted Taiwanese battery supplier, months before they detonated. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would eventually confirm Israel’s involvement in November 2024, telling his cabinet he had green-lighted the operation in the face of push back from parts of the intelligence community. The cast also features Ariel Yagen (Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints), U.S. actress and social media activist Emily Austin, Angel Bonanni (Seven Days in Entebbe), Herzel Tobey (Damascus Cover), Moran Attias (Tyrant) Aki Avni (Netflix’s Beauty Queen of Jerusalem) and Yarden Toussia Cohen (Tehran).
