Why was Hezbollah using pagers in Lebanon?
Pagers are small communication devices used commonly before mobile phones became widespread. They are harder to monitor compared with normal phones, making them popular with groups such as Hezbollah where both mobility and security are paramount.
In February, the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah ordered members to stop using mobile phones, warning they could be tracked by the Israeli army. The warning had come amid a series of precision strikes targeting the group’s operatives.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon loses one eye in pager explosions: Report
The New York Times (NYT), citing two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, has reported that Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, lost one eye and is severely injured in the other due to yesterday’s pager explosions.
The guards told the outlet that the ambassador’s injuries were more serious than initially stated and that he would be medically evacuated to Tehran for treatment.
“One of the Guards members said the pagers, including the one used by the ambassador, beeped for about 10 seconds before exploding, prompting some victims to hold the devices close to their eyes and faces to check for a message. Hence the large number of severe eye injuries,” said NYT journalist Farnaz Fassihi.
Iranian media had earlier stated that Amini was “lightly” injured from the attack.
Iran says reports about Lebanon envoy’s vision are false
The statement from Iran’s embassy in Lebanon comes after The New York Times reported that Ambassador Amani had lost one eye and was severely injured in the other following yesterday’s pager explosions.
In a post on X, the embassy said the treatment of Amani was “progressing well and that the rumors about” his “physical condition and vision are false”.
Lebanon Health Ministry worried about an ‘all out war’
The [Lebanese] health minister was keen to point out that this attack really put intense pressure on the actual health service and the emergency response.
He said the total injured are between 2,750 and 2,800. At least 300 of those are in critical condition. Many of them are in intensive care units. The ministry said that people were taken to at least 100 hospitals across the country. Up to 1,084 ambulances were pressed into action to cater to the unprecedented attacks.
There was also a regional response that he talked about; very keen to point out that aid had been sent from Iran, Jordan and Iraq so far, with more expected to arrive. He also said that the attack has had a profound significance… We, as a health service, have to be prepared, he said.
The minister also talked about making sure that the preparedness, which at the moment is between about three and six months, actually goes up to longer than that. They are worried clearly about escalation, about an all out war, and they’re talking now about being prepared for that.
Opinion: The Lebanon pager attack – Israel’s terror playbook strikes again
On Tuesday, hundreds of handheld pagers used by members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah simultaneously exploded across Lebanon, killing at least 11 people, including a 10-year-old girl. Nearly 3,000 others were wounded, many of them critically.
No one has claimed responsibility for the operation, but it is not hard to guess who is behind it: Israel, a nation that specialises in terrorising selected Arab civilian populations under the pretence of fighting terror. Since October of last year, this same nation has busied itself carrying out genocide in the Gaza Strip, where officially more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed but the true death toll is likely many times higher.
And while the ostensible targets of Tuesday’s attack were pager-wielding Hezbollah members, it was carried out with the full knowledge that the fallout would be indiscriminate and that massive civilian casualties would ensue. But that is the whole point of terrorism, is it not?
What is Israel’s secretive cyber warfare unit 8200?
Yesterday’s attack on Lebanon via exploding pagers has put a spotlight on Israel’s secretive 8200 cyber warfare unit.
Here are some facts about the Israeli military specialist cyber warfare and intelligence unit, known in Israel by its numbers in Hebrew “shmone matayim,” which is part of the Military Intelligence Directorate.
- Unit 8200 is the equivalent of the US National Security Agency or Britain’s GCHQ, and is the largest single military unit in the military. It is descended from early codebreaking and intelligence units formed in 1948.
- Its activities are usually highly secret and range from signals intelligence to data mining and technological attacks and strikes.
- Some of the operations it has allegedly been involved in include the Stuxnet virus attack that disabled Iranian nuclear centrifuges and a 2017 cyberattack on Lebanon’s state telecoms company Ogero.
- Last year, its commanding officer told a conference in Tel Aviv that the unit has used artificial intelligence technology to help select Hamas targets.
- As well as spying on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, it operates in all areas, including combat zones, and in wartime is integrated with combat command headquarters.
- In 2014, a group of 43 reservists published an open letter denouncing “unethical” surveillance by the unit of Palestinians.
