Analysis: Exploding pagers and walkie-talkies herald dangerous new escalation in Israel-Hezbollah conflict

Mourners carry the coffin of one of the people who died the previous day in pager explosions, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday. Photo: Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE

BEIRUT, Lebanon, September 18 (UPI) Military analysts say the unprecedented, highly sophisticated pager attack that Israel allegedly carried out Tuesday against Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria, which killed more than a dozen people and wounded nearly 3,000, has taken the confrontation between the two foes to a dangerous new level.

Then on Wednesday, a new wave of explosions involving walkie-talkies, solar equipment and lithium batteries left nine people dead and 300 injured across Lebanon, raising the total number of victims to 21 dead and 3,100 injured, according to Lebanese Health Ministry and security sources. The explosions also set fire to apartments and shops.

It is still unclear how thousands of Hezbollah pagers, reportedly delivered to the Iranian-backed militant group three or four months ago, exploded Tuesday in various regions of Lebanon, particularly in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the group’s main stronghold. Similar attacks were reported in Syria, where 14 people were wounded.

The death toll on Tuesday, initially reported as nine, rose to 12, including two children, and the number of wounded to 2,800, according to a new count by Health Minister Firas Abiad. Hezbollah said most of the casualties were members of the group working in its various units and institutions.

No liability claims

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hezbollah is certain Israel was behind the deadly assault.

Kassem Kassir, a political analyst specializing in Islamist movements and close to Hezbollah, said the group had not provided any information on how the pager attack was carried out. Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected to reveal some details during a speech on Thursday.

“In my opinion, it was not Hezbollah military personnel who were targeted. These types of communication devices are not used for military purposes,” Kassir told UPI. “Anyone who fires a rocket does not carry a pager.”

He said the victims included employees of the group’s health care facilities and logistics units, adding that “there may also have been some members of the security units responsible for ordinary protection.”

He noted, however, that such an operation “has a more psychological than military dimension.”

According to a report in The New York Times, Israel carried out an operation against Hezbollah by placing an explosive weighing just 1-2 ounces next to the batteries of each of the approximately 3,000 pagers ordered by the militants from a Taiwanese company.

Riad Kahwaji, head of the Middle East and Gulf Military Analysis Institute in Dubai, described Tuesday’s explosions as “an unprecedented cyberattack; Hollywood or James Bond style.”

A huge strike

“To spoof about 3,000 or 5,000 pagers and have them detonate at the same time is a huge, huge blow,” Kahwaji told UPI. He said he believes the attack caused “major disruption” to Hezbollah’s communications infrastructure and will have a major impact on its command and operations for the foreseeable future.

Hezbollah members have stopped using cellphones to avoid Israeli tracking after hundreds of them were killed in attacks since the war in Gaza began last October. But switching to primitive communication networks and using pagers has not kept them safe.

Hezbollah has launched its own investigation into the most serious security breach it has ever experienced to determine the reasons that led to the simultaneous explosions.

Hisham Jaber, a Lebanese military expert and former army general, said Hezbollah knows where the pagers came from, who was behind the shipment, who received them and distributed the pagers to thousands of its members.

“It’s a mortal sin if you don’t check mined beepers before you hand them out,” Jaber told UPI. “When they bring in new devices like this, they should open them up and check if they’re safe. There’s no discussion about that.”

Too much self-confidence

He said the Hezbollah official responsible for the shipment acted “nonchalantly” or “overconfident.”

Jaber dismissed claims that the pager attacks had affected Hezbollah fighters and command, arguing that they would not change the “course of battle.”

“Seventy percent of those who fell victim to the attacks work in logistics and are not part of the mainstream,” he noted, adding that the attacks did not affect Hezbollah’s communications network.

“It is a wired network that includes many other networks connected to each other, connected to second and third networks that only they (Hezbollah) know about and that only they (Hezbollah) have under their watch,” Jaber said.

The attacks, however, have left the Lebanese people in shock and horror, with photos and videos circulating on WhatsApp and the internet showing bloodied people lying on the ground with severed fingers, disfigured faces and deep wounds on their waists.

“The psychological effect was very important, as if Israel was telling Hezbollah that in the next war it would be able to reach them no matter what means they had,” Jaber said.

After an unprecedented attack in the world, Israel – if it is the culprit – is taking the confrontation with Hezbollah to a whole new level.

Anything else ahead?

Israel has threatened to expand attacks on Hezbollah in a bid to force the fighters to withdraw from the border area and allow thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes in northern Israel. Are the new explosions a preemptive or preparatory strike for something yet to come?

“Hezbollah is expected to try to hold back as much as possible because it still doesn’t want to enter into a full-scale war with Israel,” Kahwaji said. “It will have to find a way to retaliate at a higher level than its usual daily attacks, but not go too far to justify Israel carrying out a massive retaliation.”

He explained that when a country intends to launch a major offensive against another country, the first action it will take is to destroy its communications. “That is exactly what is happening to Hezbollah now.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned a deaf ear to US demands not to escalate operations against Lebanon and provoke an all-out war just months before the US presidential election in November.

According to Jaber, Israel, supported by the US and the West, has demonstrated intelligence and technological superiority, but Hezbollah still has many advantages up its sleeve.

Although Israel has killed nearly 500 Hezbollah fighters and commanders in 11 months of fighting, that number represents just 1 percent of the country’s estimated 50,000-strong armed force.

“Until now, Israel did not know the whereabouts of Hezbollah’s precision missiles, the elite Radwan brigade, the Russian Yakhont anti-ship missiles and the tunnel network,” Jaber said.