When I heard the reports of pagers exploding in the hands of Hezbollah terrorists I shook my head in disbelief. No, it can’t be true. It’s the stuff of the daftest of science fiction films, and spoof spy ones, of the Johhny English kind (hat tip Rowan Atkinson). And who uses pagers these days? But then I noticed well-informed commenters were taking it seriously, so I decided to keep an open mind and look into it. And blow me down with a feather, it turns out to be true - and Hezbollah were using pagers to avoid phones being tracked.
While it is very sad that innocent bystanders have been hurt, it looks like most of the dead and injured were members of terrorist organisation Hezbollah, many blinded when looking at their pagers. So, it looks like the ever-creative Israeli intelligence agencies, Shin Bet, Aman (military intelligence) and Mossad (foreign intelligence service) have successfully carried out a sophisticated operation by concealing explosive material in a shipment of pagers imported into Lebanon.
Honestly, you’d need a heart of stone not to laugh and applaud the people who pulled this off. I have no moral qualms about the killing of Hezbollah operatives. They kill many more, including their own people, and knew the risk they were taking when they signed up. The only critical criteria for me is that the Israeli operation succeeds in harming Hezbollah, and does so without provoking an all-out war in the Middle East. So far, it seems to have been successful.
But first the astonishingly ingenuous operation. Reports say that Hezbollah ordered over 3,000 pagers from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, but the Taiwanese company denied making the devices, claiming the Hungarian company BAC manufactured them using Gold Apollo's licensed brand name. Either way it looks very much like they were tampered with before reaching Lebanon. Hezbollah distributed the pagers to their members throughout Lebanon, with some reaching allies in Iran and Syria.
According to anonymous Israeli sources, up to two ounces (about 57 grams) of explosive material was placed next to the battery in each pager and a remotely triggered switch embedded to detonate the explosives. Israel's attack affected the pagers that were switched on and receiving messages.
At 3:30 pm, Lebanese time, the pagers received a message seemingly from Hezbollah headquarters, the message activating the explosives in the devices after beeping for several seconds before exploding, in many cases while the recipient was looking for the message. Latest reports are that at least 11 people were killed and more than 2,700 injured.
Hezbollah has accused Israel of carrying out the attack, but so far Israel has not commented or claimed responsibility. Experts (I know but keep an open mind) have ruled out the possibility of the more or less simultaneous explosions as being too powerful to have been caused by the batteries.
Keren Elazari, an Israeli cybersecurity analyst and researcher at Tel Aviv University, said the attacks had targeted Hezbollah where they were most vulnerable. Earlier this year, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had strictly limited the use of mobile phones, which he saw as increasingly vulnerable to Israeli surveillance.
"This attack hit them in their Achilles' heel because they took out a central means of communication," Elazari said. "We have seen these types of devices, pagers, targeted before but not in an attack this sophisticated."
Coincidentally or not, the pagers exploded on the same day that Shin Bet revealed that Hezbollah had tried to assassinate a former top Israeli defence chief, and only a day after Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that diplomatic resolutions of the situation in the North - where 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated since October 2023 - were exhausted and Israel would need to carry out a large military operation to resolve the situation.
Let us all hope that this was the major operation Gallant was talking about, as an invasion might be the spark that ignites a major regional war, the outcome of which would, in my opinion, be very unpredictable and not necessarily to Israel’s benefit. As it stands, Israel seems to have badly hurt Hezbollah. Many of its senior personnel have been killed or badly wounded, and unhurt terrorists must be asking themselves ‘what next?’. Possibly even worse for Hezbollah, it is likely that they suspect Israel has penetrated their ranks, or has turned some of their own operatives, thus disseminating mistrust into the heart of its command structure.
The main question is what comes next. So far, neither Israel nor Hezbollah have wanted a full-scale confrontation. Hezbollah has hit northern Israel with thousands of rockets and drones but has avoided using its many long-range missiles on Israeli cities. Likewise, Israel has carried out relatively small strikes on Hezbollah terrorists but has avoided a major incursion into Lebanon. Casualties on both sides have been relatively low.
But what now? Diplomatic efforts to end the war have got nowhere, and even the ceasefire in exchange for hostage talks have collapsed, mainly because Hamas keeps on making more demands. Israel’s Gaza operations look like continuing indefinitely and the situation in northern Israel is politically untenable, with increasing agitation for Israel to clear the border and get the northern refugees home.
So while we applaud the ingenuity of the Israeli military and intelligence agency, there seems to be no end to this war in sight, and an end is something Israel badly needs.