On pagers – Patrick Kingsley, Euan Ward,Ronen Bergman and Michael Levenson in NYT:
‘Hezbollah has used pagers for years to make it harder for messages to be intercepted. At 3:30 p.m., the pagers received a message that appeared as though it was coming from Hezbollah’s leadership, according to two officials familiar with the attack. The pagers beeped for several seconds before exploding.’
(…)
‘Although Israeli officials neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the explosions, Israel has a long history of sophisticated sabotage and assassination operations against its adversaries.
According to American and other officials briefed on the attack, Israel hid explosive material in a shipment of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon.’
(…)
‘The pagers exploded a day after a senior Biden administration official, Amos Hochstein, met in Tel Aviv with Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in an effort to prevent Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah from escalating into an all-out war.
In a statement after the meeting, Mr. Gallant said he had told Mr. Hochstein that the window for reaching a diplomatic solution was closing because Hezbollah had decided to “tie itself” to Hamas.
“The only way left to return the residents of the north to their homes is via military action,” Mr. Gallant said.
Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, said on Tuesday that the United States was “not involved” in the attack in Lebanon, and that it had not received any advance notice about it. “At this point, we are gathering information,” Mr. Miller said.’
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‘Although Hezbollah members have used pagers for years, the practice became more widespread after the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned in a speech in February that Israeli operatives could be using members’ cellphones to spy on them. He encouraged Hezbollah members to break or bury their phones.
As a result, thousands of rank-and-file members of Hezbollah — and not just fighters — switched to a new system of wireless paging devices, said Amer Al Sabaileh, a regional security expert and university professor based in Amman, Jordan. He said his information was based on extensive contacts in Lebanese political and security circles.
Mr. Sabaileh said that the explosions were a psychological blow for Hezbollah because they showed Israel’s capacity to strike anyone connected with the group as they went about their daily business.’
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‘In 2020, Israel assassinated Iran’s top nuclear scientist and deputy defense minister, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, using an A.I.-assisted robot controlled remotely via satellite. The following year, an Israeli hack of servers belonging to Iran’s oil ministry disrupted gasoline distribution nationwide. And in February, Israel blew up two major gas pipelines in Iran, disrupting service to several cities.’
Read the article here.
A Dutch newspaper described the operation as ‘unparalleled’ – probably. And the attack might be a psychological blow to Hezbollah but the question remains if this operation will bring the return of the citizens to their villages and towns in the northern part of Israel any closer.
Despite all the American efforts to prevent a war between Hezbollah and Israel we are edging closer to such a war. And even after such a war it seems unlikely that the balance of power between Hezbollah and Israel will be much different.