Indranil Banerjie | Blasts in pagers, other devices in Mideast: Battle is turning dirtier
Israel’s dirty tricks department has once again proved how effective and innovative it can be when it wants to. On Tuesday afternoon (September 17), residents in a suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut suddenly found the pagers they were carrying starting to beep, some lifted them up to read the screens while others pressed them to stop. That’s when they began to explode. Hundreds of pagers all over the area went off, blowing up faces, obliterating fingers and leaving gaping wounds in the waist of people wearing them. The explosions continued for about an hour in a Beirut suburb, Dahiyeh, and in parts of the Bekaa Valley near the Israeli border. Within an hour, about 12 Lebanese, including two children, lay dead and almost 3,000 men and women injured. Among them was Iran’s envoy in Lebanon. A day later, more pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices blew up, killing at least another 20 people and injuring hundreds more.
It soon became clear that these explosions were an elaborate Israeli covert operation targeted at members and supporters of the Hezbollah militant group. The areas targeted are known to be strongholds of the militant group. An estimated 5,000 of these pagers had been imported by Hezbollah some months ago from Hungary, and distributed to its members in lieu of mobile phones that were being tracked by Israeli intelligence. A Lebanese militant leader had warned that mobile phones were more deadly and the Israelis themselves had proscribed them! Pagers were chosen as a safer means of communications. No one had the slightest clue that these imported pagers had been tampered with by Israelis at the time of manufacture to contain a small amount of explosive that could be set off at a particular time.
The way the entire operation was executed reads like a thriller. Apparently, Hezbollah had contracted with a firm called BAC Consulting Kft based in Hungary to produce 5,000 pieces of AR-924 model pagers from Taiwanese components made by a company called Gold Apollo. Hsu Ching-Kuang, the founder of Taipei-based Gold Apollo, revealed that the pagers sold to the Hezbollah was not manufactured by them but by a European company that had the rights to use its brand name. Israeli operatives seem to have infiltrated the Hungarian manufacturer and then somehow rig the pagers. Or could it be that the Hungarian firm established only in 2022 was an Israeli set-up? Whatever the case, the saboteurs managed to insert a miniature circuit loaded with three grams of explosives into the pagers which could the detonated by the transmission of a secret code.
The motivation behind the pager blast operation is not difficult to understand. Since the beginning of the Gaza War, Israel has been battling Hezbollah, which has routinely been firing missiles into northern Israel, leading to civilian casualties and the evacuation of several thousand Israeli civilians from the area. Israel’s Security Cabinet recently said that the return of its residents displaced from northern Israel adjoining the Lebanon border was an additional war aim. The daily exchange of firing in Israel’s northern borders have become commonplace.
Realising it cannot wage a conventional war with Hezbollah, the Israeli leadership has been systematically targeting Hezbollah leaders and assets in a manner that would provoke them to launch a massive attack against Israel, which would in turn compel the United States to intervene militarily in the fighting.
The latest pager blasts seem to be continuation of the same strategy of provocation.
Washington, however, has resisted every attempt to get involved and has been urging the government in Jerusalem to desist from provoking Hezbollah in Lebanon. Washington also wishes to avoid a direct conflict with Iran, which today has a large body of combatants, fighter aircraft and sophisticated missiles capable of inflicting considerable damage on any adversary.
Immediately after the blasts, a US state department official disassociated itself from the blasts and said it was investigating who was responsible. Pointedly, the spokesman urged Iran not to take advantage of the incident to raise instability, while admitting that civilians were not legitimate targets for any type of operation.
The blasts ultimately proved that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy of drawing the United States into the war is not working. Both Hezbollah and its patron, Iran, have been extremely restrained in the face of Israeli provocation in the past and have desisted from any action that could draw the US into the conflict. While Hezbollah has sworn to avenge the pager blasts, it is certain its response would not be excessive.
Meanwhile, it is Mr Netanyahu’s government in Israel which is losing the battle of hearts and minds both within and outside the country. The pager blasts border on terrorism, given that non-combatants including two children were killed and many more wounded. Israel started the Gaza War with much international sympathy and support, which over the months have eroded as incessant bombings of civilians in Gaza have led to over 40,000 deaths and no resolution in sight.
The international community is increasingly sickened by the continuing carnage and the latest pager blasts is being viewed as yet another instance of Israeli atrocity. This is no way to win a war. Dirty tricks are at best a sideshow and cannot alter the strategic reality of Israeli military fatigue and the futility of its war efforts. Even Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant has said that Mr Netanyahu’s avowed objective of “total victory” in Gaza is nonsense. Clearly, now is the time to take a step back, seek a deal that will bring back those Israeli hostages still alive and pull the Middle East back from the precipice on which it is currently poised.