BENGALURU: Hundreds of paging devices used by members of Hezbollah —the Iran-backed Shia militant group—exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria in an attack that is said to have killed at least a dozen people, including a child, and wounded around 3,000 people. Though Israel has not commented as yet on the attack, Hezbollah has blamed Mossad—the Israeli intelligence agency for it.
“This is not the first time that Israel has planted an explosive in a communication device used by its enemies. In 1996, Yahya Ayyash, head of the bomb-making programme of Palestinian militant group—Hamas—was blown up in an explosion after Shin Bet—Israel’s internal intelligence agency—planted an explosive in his cellphone. The same was detonated as soon as Ayyash took his father’s call,” West Asia analyst and former visiting faculty of international relations, University of Warsaw, Saurabh Kumar Shahi said.
On the impact of the pagers explosion on Hezbollah, Shahi said that Israel has made “some major tactical gains in planting explosives in the pagers used by Hezbollah by creating panic in the ranks. They will now question the devices they are using to bypass Mossad network.
Operationally, the explosion was meant to be triggered during a war between the Israeli Defence Force and Hezbollah but Israel detonated it after two members of Hezbollah grew suspicious about the pagers and began probe,” he said.
He said that there have also been some civilian casualties, including medics who use pagers. “It will not be a surprise if Hezbollah now starts targeting civilians in Israel because many of its members are civilians, including parliamentarians. Until now they targetted only the Israeli military and their assets.
The pagers from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo were produced by BAC Consulting KFT, its Hungarian partner. The shipment was stranded in Jordan for three months. It is possible that the Israelis infiltrated the supply chain. It is also possible that someone in the Mukhabarat (Jordanian Intelligence agency) may have turned rogue and planted the explosives in the pagers,” said the analyst.
He said that while Israel may have made some tactical gains, strategically, the explosions didn’t seem to make a dent as Hezbollah has continued firing Israel. “In the larger context, losing some cadre in the explosions have not deterred Hezbollah because of their large numbers. Their special unit— the Radwan forces—is more than a lakh in number.
On the strategic front, Israel may be wanting to have quarter million North Israeli settlers, who have left their homes in the wake of the offensive with Hezbollah post October 7 attack by Hamas to return home. Many of them are staying in hotels in Tel Aviv, which is proving to be a financial burden for the country. But Tuesday’s explosion will not help Israel in getting its people return back home in the Israel-Lebanon border,” he added.
