Israel’s pager attack triggered by suspicion Hezbollah might discover the plan, say several media outlets

Suspicions within Hezbollah that Israel had tapped its internal communications systems precipitated the Tuesday attack that killed at least nine people, including several Hezbollah members and a child, and wounded around 3,000 more people, regional intelligence sources confirmed to Al Monitor, as cited by the Israeli daily Haaretz. The report added that Israel’s intention had not originally been to detonate the devices at this time, but rather right before carrying out a major attack on Lebanon to damage the capabilities of the Shiite party-militia supported by Iran, with which it has been engaged in a low-intensity war for almost a year. This same theory is supported by Axios, which cites three unnamed U.S. officials familiar with the decision-making process. According to one of these sources, it was a “use it or lose it moment.” For weeks, tensions have been rising, particularly along the border between Israel and Lebanon, given the possibility that the daily launching of missiles and drones could lead to a more intense conflict.

A total of up to 5,000 devices that have arrived in Lebanon in recent months may have been altered by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, at some point along the supply chain, a Lebanese security source explained to Reuters. “The Mossad included a plate inside the device that has explosive material” and that “is very difficult to detect by any means. Even with any device or scanner,” added the same source.

The explosion of the pagers carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria has served to uncover, on the one hand, the weakness of the Lebanese guerrilla’s communications system, despite all the precautions they implement, and, on the other, it shows the true power of the Israeli secret services. Until now, their last major blow was delivered on July 31, when the top leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniya, was killed in Tehran in an attack that remained unclaimed. “The resistance will continue today, like any other day, with its operations to support Gaza, its people and its resistance” against Israel, which should expect a response, the Lebanese militia said in a statement. Its top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is scheduled to give a speech on Thursday.

The Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo, the brand name found on the devices, has tried to deflect responsibility. In a statement, it pointed to the European company BAC Consulting, based in Budapest (Hungary), which has a license to use the Gold Apollo brand. “According to the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” the statement says.

Israel has killed its enemies in a variety of ways over the decades, from dropping one-ton bombs that killed dozens of people around the targets, to using precision-engineered explosive phones. It has also carried out cyberattacks, poisonings, used high-precision drones, and designed remote-activated weapons. Its agents on the ground often resort to disguise and deception to carry out attacks undetected, in real-life plots that seem straight out of a movie.

But there has never been a remote operation as sophisticated as the one carried out on Tuesday, whose authorship nobody has questioned even if the Israeli authorities remain silent on the matter. “If Israel is really responsible, the pager attack was certainly one of the most original, surprising and painful moves of this shadow war. This is the kind of operation that is reserved for use only in emergency cases,” says Ronen Bergman, an analyst for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.

In an attempt to circumvent close monitoring by the Israeli secret services of their enemies, the Lebanese guerrillas have opted for pagers, a rudimentary communication system that was prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s, and which does not even allow the user to make calls. Tracking them is more complex than mobile phones, which are generally connected to the internet. But everything indicates that even this precaution has not been enough.

Sinwar communicates in writing

In recent days, details have emerged about how Yahia Sinwar, the top Hamas leader and one of Israel’s most coveted players, who took over a week after Haniya’s assassination, tries to evade surveillance and monitoring. He communicates through handwritten notes that he sometimes sends to his recipients through close and very trusted associates.

One of these letters, which could even serve to set the conditions for negotiations with Israel on a possible ceasefire, recently reached the hands of Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, as the guerrilla shared on its social media last week. In it, the Palestinian showed his gratitude for the support during the war as part of the axis of which they are part under the guidance of Tehran. A similar note appeared on the profiles of the Houthi guerrilla in Yemen last weekend after the Hamas leader congratulated them for managing to get one of their missiles into Israeli territory.

Sinwar is trying to avoid any electronic communication that might give Israel the opportunity to locate and either capture or kill him. The Hamas chief is accused of being one of the masterminds behind the massacre of around 1,200 people on October 7 in Israel, which set the current war in motion. The fact that a state like Israel, obsessed with security and capable of carrying out operations like the one on Tuesday, was the victim that day of the biggest attack in its 76-year history continues to raise many eyebrows. Many are still asking themselves, almost a year later, whether its secret services, its army and its government really knew nothing of what Hamas had been cooking up for months in a small territory like Gaza, only 365 square kilometres in size and under constant surveillance.

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