Nah. It's a potential flame thrower maybe. But not a bomb. Lithium batteries just don't have the chemistry necessary to make a proper explosion. They can pressurize a battery case. But batteries are intentionally designed to blow out in a controlled way.
It would be good if Israel came out and explicitly said this was an attack done with explosives.
If true that would indeed be wise. Also for everyone else using that particular pager.
The few smart phone battery fire videos I've seen reminded me more of fountain fireworks than the explosive sound Bloomberg published.
There's discussion on HackerNews too about whether these are:
1. Normal lithium batteries with some software exploit;
2. Batteries modified (e.g. intercepted during shipping) to explode
3. Added explosives
Maybe they bought the batteries from whoever made these :-) https://youtu.be/xu13u-jWasg
