Jerusalem – The alleged James Bond-style hack attack by the Jewish state on Tuesday, which caused the handheld pagers of thousands of Hezbollah members designated as terrorists by the US to explode, was a devastating blow to the Lebanon-based organisation.
Fox News Digital spoke to leading experts in the US and Israel about this blow to the Iranian regime.
According to a Reuters report, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s blasts that killed nine people, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.
Iranian regime-backed Hezbollah The organization switched from using mobile phones to pagers to prevent its communications from being intercepted by Israel. Hezbollah joined Hamas’ war against Israel on October 7, a day after the Gaza-based terrorist organization invaded the Jewish state.
An ambulance carries injured people in Beirut on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Walid Phares, a leading U.S. expert on Lebanon and Hezbollah, told Fox News Digital that the alleged Israeli operation “is definitely an attack against Hezbollah’s national security apparatus. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of individuals who are at the core of Hezbollah’s security force, who, according to our known sources, are in charge of conducting a number of things. One of them is the missile force.”
Hezbollah is estimated to have more than 150,000 missiles to target Israel. Hezbollah, the de facto ruler of Lebanon, has amassed a wealth of new, sophisticated missiles, rockets and drones since its war with Israel in 2006. Since October 8, Hezbollah has fired more than 7,500 missiles, rockets and drones at Israel.
A Hezbollah official said the pager explosion was aimed at the group. “Biggest security breach” It is the biggest attack since the Gaza conflict began.
Hezbollah’s neighbors: Terror group continues to attack Israeli border communities
Fares said the “Israeli electronic bomb” campaign also weakened many of Hezbollah’s special forces, commandos, electronic forces, and members of the internal security and intelligence apparatus. However, he warned that Hezbollah would eventually recover.
An ambulance carries injured people in Beirut on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Fares said the Israeli attack had “weakened Hezbollah’s image among the Lebanese public.” He said the psychological benefits of the attack showed that the Lebanese are now convinced that Hezbollah “can ultimately be defeated” and that its “grip on Lebanon” can be weakened.
He said the Israeli cyber attack could also fuel mobilization among Sunnis, Druze and Christians against the Shiite Hezbollah organization.
When Fox News Digital contacted an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson for comment, he remained silent. Israel often maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity regarding high-profile attacks on its enemies. Israeli government policy is to neither confirm nor deny spectacular assassinations or other covert operations. A senior U.S. official later confirmed that Israel was behind the attack, but Israel has yet to do so.
The alleged Mossad operation, stretching from Taiwan to Budapest, was an unprecedented breach in Hezbollah’s security that led to thousands of pagers exploding in Lebanon, injuring some 2,500 people, including many of the group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.
A funeral ceremony was held for Yasser Nemir Karnish, a former bodyguard of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in clashes on the Israeli-Lebanese border in Beirut on 10 July 2024. Karnish’s relatives and Hezbollah supporters attended the ceremony. (Houssam Shabro/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Hezbollah said in a statement on Wednesday that “today, as on every other day, the resistance will continue its operations to support Gaza, its people and its resistance, which is a path different from the harsh punishment that must await the criminal enemy (Israel) in response to Tuesday’s massacre.”
Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that “beyond the shock and humiliation, its immediate impact on Hezbollah is not yet clear, nor are the Iranian terrorist proxies’ intentions to retaliate. While the pager attack was a spectacular tactical success unlike anything previously achieved in the fight against any terrorist organization, the strategic benefits of this groundbreaking move are limited if not complemented by swift Israeli action against Hezbollah, which is reeling from the shock of the impact.”
The Hezbollah Radwan Army is training in southern Lebanon, near the Israeli border. (AP/Hassan Ammar)
“The action appears to have been intended to get Hezbollah to agree to a diplomatic solution that avoids war, not as a prelude to an Israeli invasion,” said Conricus, a former IDF spokesman. Israel’s main focus is to facilitate the safe return of nearly 100,000 people home. Israelis displaced by Hezbollah attacks for more than 11 months. If the Pager operation makes this possible, it will be a risk worth taking. If it doesn’t, it will join a long list of Israeli tactical successes that were not complemented by strategic thinking and action.”
Israel’s Mossad has earned a reputation as one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world. In the past two months, Israel has reportedly killed Hezbollah’s top terrorist Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Hamas terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and eliminated his special forces. Iranian weapons facility raided In the Masyaf region of Syria.
Nadav Eyal, a prominent Israeli columnist for the major Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth, told Fox News Digital that although Israel has not claimed responsibility for the operation, “it will be remembered as one of the most brilliant Israeli intelligence operations ever. It was a very meticulous operation.”
People walk past rubble and a destroyed car after an Israeli military strike destroyed the upper floors of an eight-story building in a southern suburb of Beirut July 30, 2024. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Eyal added, “This is a very effective operation if you want to restore deterrence in the region. Israel’s major strategic problem in the region is that it has lost its deterrence, which prevents its enemies from attacking it. Hamas attacked on October 7. Hezbollah attacked Israel on October 8. Iran attacked Israel in April. All these parties, together with the Houthis, are not deterred.”
“Through these kinds of operations, Israel is actually showing different forces what it can do. And it has done that in its campaign,” the Israeli military expert said. Response to Iranian airstrikes back in April. It’s showing them that it can work in ways and means they didn’t expect. Whether or not it’s effective in the long term is something we’ll have to see.”
He said, “Israel has been preparing for a war in the north with Hezbollah since 2007. Israel’s preparations have been going on for 17 years…Israel is not preparing to attack Hamas.”
“We have to push Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon and strike at their capabilities,” IDF reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivi told Fox News Digital.
An arch glorifying Hezbollah and pictures of its leader Hassan Nasrallah (right) and Iran’s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei adorn a street in a southern suburb of Beirut on January 16, 2011. (Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images)
Avivi, founder and chairman of the Israeli Defense and Security Forum, said that although Israel has not claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack in Lebanon, “this is actually the first step toward shifting the center of gravity from Gaza to Lebanon. In my opinion, war is imminent. We have to attack Hezbollah and we have to make a ground incursion. We cannot have Hezbollah on our borders. Israel is sending a very strong message. We have the knowledge and capabilities. We know everything about Hezbollah and Iran. If they don’t back down, the end is clear: Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is going to be destroyed.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
