Israel planted explosives in thousands of beepers imported by Hezbollah months before the unusual attack carried out on Tuesday in Lebanon, according to several sources consulted by Reuters and American media.
The operation, for which the Lebanese militia held the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad directly responsible, represents a massive security failure. Thousands of devices have exploded in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000, including Hezbollah fighters and the Iranian ambassador to Beirut. Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad reported that the casualties included two minors and several health workers.
Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind the explosions. The group said it was conducting a “scientific and security investigation” into what caused the devices and that Israel would receive “its just punishment.” Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary called the attack an “Israeli aggression.”
According to Axios, citing three U.S. sources, Israel decided to detonate the devices out of fear that its covert operation might have been discovered by the Lebanese group. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his top ministers and the heads of the Israeli Defense Forces and intelligence agencies decided to use the system now rather than risk it being detected by Hezbollah,” Axios reported. Earlier, Al-Monitor reported similar reports, indicating that two Hezbollah members had raised suspicions about the pagers in recent days.
The Israeli military did not comment directly on the explosions but said senior military officials had conducted an assessment of the situation to determine “the degree of defensive and offensive readiness in all areas.”
Made in Europe
The Taiwanese company linked to the devices that exploded claimed the pagers were made by a European company. In the moments after the attack, local media broadcast images of pagers with labels on the back similar to those made by Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, Reuters analysts said.
On Wednesday, the company’s founder, Hsu Ching-kuang, denied that he was the manufacturer of the pagers. She also defended that they were made in Europe by a company authorized to use her trademark. “The product was not ours. There was only our trademark,” the businessman said. “We are a responsible company. “It’s very humiliating.”
The explosions appear to have taken advantage of Hezbollah’s use of pagers, devices with more basic technology, to prevent selective attacks on its members, whose movements could be tracked by cellphone signals. Also injured in the attack was Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, according to various reports.
A Hezbollah source said he considered the attack to be a response to the militia’s alleged assassination attempt on a senior Israeli defense official, as revealed Tuesday by the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet.
Lebanon’s hospitals were overwhelmed by the influx of patients, and the southern city of Tyre had to build a field hospital to accommodate those injured in the attack. Ambulance sirens continued to blare continuously in Beirut for up to three hours after the explosions began.
U.S. government officials are trying to reduce tensions between the two sides and continue to express concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ultimately order a ground invasion of Lebanon. The attack came just hours after Israel announced it had broadened its goals in the war that erupted after Hamas attacks on October 7 to include fighting Hezbollah on its border with Lebanon.
The Shiite militia confirmed on Tuesday that at least two of its fighters and a young girl were among the dead. Later, several media outlets reported that the son of MP Ali Ammar had also died in one of the explosions. The raids exploded in southern Lebanon, in the southern Beirut neighborhoods known as Dahie, as well as in the Bekaa Valley (east), all areas controlled by Hezbollah.
A serious security breach
A militia leader acknowledged, speaking on condition of anonymity, that the blasts were the militia’s “most serious security failure” since October 7, when Hamas launched several attacks in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped nearly 1,250 people.
Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. national intelligence envoy to the Middle East, said that “this may be the biggest counterintelligence failure Hezbollah has had in decades.”
The alleged sabotage came months after Israel’s selective attacks that killed Hezbollah leaders and sparked tensions between its government and the Lebanese militia. A tense calm marked the past few weeks, as both sides appeared to have stepped back from the precipice of open warfare in the region, particularly after Hezbollah’s limited attack in late August, its response to Israel’s assassination of its military leader Fouad Shoukr in Beirut.
The attack could also derail U.S. efforts to prevent Iran, which backs Hezbollah, from retaliating against Israel for its July attack in Tehran that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “it is too early” to determine how the attack will affect Gaza peace talks. In his appearance Tuesday, Miller said the United States was not involved in the attack and did not know who was responsible.
Hamas, for its part, described the explosions as an “escalation” of the conflict that will lead to Israel’s defeat.
Translation by Cristina F. Pereda
This article has been updated by the editorial staff of elDiario.es.
