Amin Qudsi
Hezbollah is determined to hit Israel hard for sabotaging communication devices used by the organisation’s operatives and civilians across Lebanon that killed 37 people and injured over 3 400 people over two days.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday offered his condolences to the families of those martyred or wounded and challenged Israel to try open another front along the Lebanon border.
“If the enemy establishes a security belt, it must understand that it will be ambushed and the zone will turn into a swamp and a quagmire in which it will be mired,” Nasrallah warned.
He said the movement had received many “diplomatic” calls warning it of the dire consequences of a retaliation, but he said the Iran-backed movement remained determined for fight fire with fire.
The Times of Israel is gloating in its headlines today: “Israel didn’t tamper with Hezbollah’s exploding pagers, it made them – New York Times”.
Bloody fingerprints
The report says Israeli spies were behind the Hungarian firm BAC Consulting that supplied the rigged devices. Bulgaria had launched a probe into the devices and has uncovered other shell companies masking the Israeli ownership.
The New York Times claimed that rather than merely tampering with the devices at some stage of their production or distribution, Israel actually “manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse”.
Nasrallah admitted the killer device operation had hurt, but its operations remained intact.
“There is no doubt that we were subjected to a major blow on a security and humanitarian level that is unprecedented in the history of our Resistance,” he said. “We were dealt a major blow, but that is war. We acknowledge that the enemy has technological supremacy, especially as it is backed by the United States and the collective West.”
New York Times reports BAC supplied other firms with pagers as well, though only the ones transferred to Hezbollah were fitted with batteries that contained explosive materiel known as PETN.
But the rigged devices weren’t sent directly to Hezbollah, It seems the Israelis distributed them among the general population, through retail sales. The NYT says they first began to reach Lebanon in 2022,” with production ramping up as Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah denounced the use of cellphones due to concerns they could be tracked by Israel”.
Kill one, kill all
So, these were “dumb” bombs, that could explode indiscriminately, irrespective of who was carrying them.
“Every aspect of the attack was deliberate. Its indiscriminate and blanket nature is telling of the Israeli occupation’s tactics and intentions: Inflict as much loss on the enemy regardless of at what cost,” Al-Mayadeen reports Thursday.
But, if Israel thought the attacks would weaken Hezbollah’s support, then the attack backfired spectacularly. The Lebanese people as a whole feel they have been assaulted as the whole country had to respond, because beepers exploded across the country, putting hospitals and emergency services under severe pressure during rush hour traffic.
Children were among those killed and injured and many devices exploded on highways, in shopping centres, in homes and on playgrounds. The devices were primed to first beep and wait a few seconds before exploding, apparently giving their bearers a chance to bring the beepers closer to their faces.
This was evident from the large amount of eye, face and head injuries that had to be treated.
Al Mayadeen says the attacks “put countless civilians in harm’s way in more ways that could be fathomable. Perhaps a truck driver could have had his explode while on the highway, losing him control over the vehicle and jeopardizing civilians; a nurse helping in the delivery of a baby; a father carrying his child while resting their body on his waist and so on and so forth”.
Embedded in the country
The atrocity is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention that prohibits indiscriminate attacks of this nature, particularly against civilians and underlines Israel’s determination to bolster its pariah status among nations.
Hezbollah is also more than just a military operation. It also helps run many civil institutions, such as the Martyr Foundation, that takes care of the orphans and widows of martyrs, another caring for the wounded. It also oversees madrassas and the Qard al-Hassan, a microcredit, and savings institution.
Investigators in Lebanon doubt the reports that PETN explosives were used as these can be detected by customs officials “especially as the shipment reportedly made it though several airports and had numerous stops before arriving in Lebanon”.
Al Mayadeen reports PETN “can be detected through chemicals, X-rays, infrared waves, and microwaves, many of which are directly present in airports all over the world”. It says Lebanese investigators are wondering if Israel has found a way to “weaponise” highly flammable lithium in device batteries to rig it to explode.
‘Declaration of war’
If so, then any lithium-charged device around the world could be turned into a possible “dumb” bomb. Lithium can spontaneously explode into flames burning at around 2 000 degrees Celsius when it mixes with water.
Nasrallah referred to the attacks as a “major terrorist operation, an act of genocide and massacre,” amounting to a “declaration of war.”
Over two days, the Zionists targeted more than 5,000 people, many in civilian locations where many of the individuals carrying the devices were present.
Many injuries were fortunately minor, with a number of pagers out of service or not distributed at all at the time of the explosion, as he revealed.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah had faced “paramount pressures and numerous threats” aimed at halting operations on the northern front. “We were informed through numerous official and unofficial channels on Tuesday of the need to stop supporting Gaza and firing into ‘Israel’ from the north,” he added. But Hezbollah would not succumb to these threats nor halt its support for Gaza, he said.
Sitting ducks
He also warned that the occupation’s actions would increase the displacement of settlers from the north and reduce the possibility of their return.
Regarding Israeli talk of establishing a security belt in the north, he said it “is making us hope they do go ahead with it so that their tanks would be easier to hit. Tanks arriving in the zone would be a “golden, historical opportunity” to strike.
Al Monitor reports after moving its 98th division to the Lebanon border region on Wednesday, the Israeli military said Thursday chief of staff Herzi Halevi “has approved plans for the northern sector.”
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