Deadly Hezbollah pager explosions will cause immense embarrassment and sow chaos
It really is like something out of a Hollywood spy movie.
The pagers of Hezbollah officials simultaneously exploding in a southern Beirut suburb, causing hundreds of injuries and immense embarrassment.
Israel hasn’t claimed responsibility, but all fingers will point to the Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency famed for inventive and audacious attacks on its enemies.
Technically, we might never know how it was achieved but it could have been done by sending signals to overload the individual circuits which would overheat the batteries, effectively turning them into small hand grenades.
To do that, the attackers would have had to know at least the make and models of the individual pagers; to go further and co-ordinate the explosions on specific devices, it’s likely the serial numbers would also be known, all of which points to another major security breach for Hezbollah.
Alternatively the pagers themselves, all apparently part of the same batch, could have been tampered with before delivery.
An ambulance arrives at the American University of Beirut Medical Center amid a large number of injured people after pagers began exploding. Pic: Reuters
We can reasonably assume that those carrying pagers would have been fairly senior within the group. That is supported by reports Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon was also injured when his pager exploded.
Hezbollah has been very cautious with its communications, aware that mobile phone conversations can be easily hacked and traced – pagers would have been considered a lo-fi alternative and harder to infiltrate.
Live updates: Eight dead in pager explosions include Hezbollah fighters
Repeatedly Israeli intelligence has shown its reach into Hezbollah, most notably the assassination of the senior commander Fuad Shukr in late July.
This latest attack will cause deep internal concern within Hezbollah, possibly even some chaos among its ranks, their safety now compromised in such a dramatic way.
Police officers inspect a car where a pager exploded in Beirut, Lebanon.
Pic: AP
The wider war
A number of things have happened in recent days which, taken together, I think are also notable.
Firstly, late last week, the IDF declared defeat of Hamas’s Rafah brigade in southern Gaza. This is being seen as the final major military achievement for the IDF in Gaza and allows Israel to pivot its efforts at Hezbollah and the conflict on the Israeli-Lebanese border should it choose to.
Late last night, Israel’s security cabinet officially made the return of the northern evacuees one of the war aims, alongside defeating Hamas and returning the hostages.
At the same time, rumours are swirling that the defence minister Yoav Gallant could be sacked by Benjamin Netanyahu and replaced with Gideon Sa’ar, a Netanyahu ally-turned-foe who is more hawkish on the Hezbollah issue.
And earlier today, Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency revealed it had uncovered a Hezbollah plot to assassinate a former senior Israeli military officer using a remotely detonated anti-personnel mine-type device.
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To what extent these events are all linked, we shall have to see, but I think there is some connection as Israel increasingly focuses on the war in the north.
Hezbollah allied with Hamas after 7 October and tied itself to the war in Gaza by committing to attack Israel in solidarity until a ceasefire was agreed. The ceasefire hasn’t happened and Hezbollah has found itself in an increasingly difficult and arguably unwinnable situation.
Israel is hitting Hezbollah targets and fighters deep into Lebanon.
The Lebanese people, and we’re told Hezbollah themselves, don’t want an all-out war with Israel and yet the organisation’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah has boxed himself into a corner with no clear exit strategy short of a humiliating climbdown.
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How Hezbollah now responds to the pager attacks will be interesting.
If more than a thousand Lebanese had been injured in a conventional airstrike then the noises of imminent war would be deafening. But this attack is below the threshold of conventional conflict, albeit it large in scale and damage, and so the response is unclear.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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IDF reservists call for end to war in Gaza
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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