The Hezbollah pager attacks reveal a textbook covert operation, ex-spies say

The back-to-back attacks killed at least 30 people and injured some 3,000 more, including Hezbollah fighters, and overwhelmed local hospitals.

Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Iran all blamed Israel for the deadly attacks. Israel has not claimed responsibility, but the country has a long history of carrying out clandestine operations beyond its borders. It quickly became the leading suspect behind the blasts, with some media reports that the Israelis were behind the events.

Israel assassinated a Hamas bombmaker in 1996 with an exploding phone, but what’s different in these attacks is that thousands of devices were rigged and exploded simultaneously.

While the extent of the attack is still being determined, the level of sophistication is becoming clearer.

Earlier this year, the leader of the militant group, Hassan Nasrallah, decided it was better to avoid using cellphones because they could be too easily tracked and monitored by Israel’s vaunted intelligence services. They began switching to older devices like pagers — creating an opening for their enemy.

But if Israel is indeed behind the attack, it raises questions about why the country would have chosen to detonate the explosives now after going through all the trouble of such a sophisticated and lengthy infiltration process.

“Supply chain operations are hard,” said Douglas London, a retired senior CIA operations officer with experience in the Middle East. “When you have this success, it’s incredible. You hold on to it and don’t expose it.”

Hezbollah will investigate the massive security breach and plug the necessary holes, making it more difficult for an adversary to carry out another supply chain operation in the future, added London, author of “The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.”

The attacks began shortly after Israel indicated, without specificity, that it would increase military pressure on Hezbollah so that people who have been displaced by constant fighting between the two bitter enemies can return to their homes.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border strikes since Hamas staged its October 7 massacre, forcing tens of thousands of people in northern Israel and southern Lebanon from their homes. The two warring parties have avoided all-out confrontation despite constant fears that escalation would lead to that scenario.

The pager and walkie-talkie attacks were certainly disruptive and would have made Hezbollah vulnerable to immediate Israeli military action, experts say. But if the blasts are supposed to precede an Israeli ground offensive into Lebanon, that does not yet appear to be the case.

“Relatively, the gains don’t seem to merit the exposure of this capability,” London said.

He said this capability could have been a tool for more strategic goals like collecting intelligence on Hezbollah’s membership, facilities, weaponry, and movement. Such advantages could have then translated into precision attacks instead of causing indiscriminate casualties for psychological effects.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that the war is now in a “new phase” and “the sequence of our military actions will continue.” On Friday, Israel and Hezbollah exchanged more fire.

Whether Israel is headed for a ground invasion of Lebanon remains to be seen. Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said there may not be a direct correlation between the device explosions this week and any Israeli invasion.

“But that doesn’t mean that it’s not something that could happen in the immediate future,” he said. “This was such an extensive and so bold an operation that it was designed to knock Hezbollah off balance for a period of time. They’ll obviously recover, but not soon.”