‘Mossad infiltrated the supply chain’
Analysts say Israeli operatives likely planted explosives into communication devices before they were delivered to Hezbollah.
“This was more than lithium batteries being forced into override,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute.
“A small plastic explosive was almost certainly concealed alongside the battery for remote detonation via a call or page,” the analyst said, adding Israel’s spy agency “Mossad infiltrated the supply chain”.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warned the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war”.
Amos Harel of Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had put “Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of all-out war”.
Device detonations: Has Israel carried out such attacks before?
Israel and its spy agency Mossad are accused of orchestrating the explosion of thousands of pagers that killed and maimed civilians and Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon.
The method and scale of the attack – which Hezbollah ally Iran branded “mass murder” – are unprecedented, but Israel has been carrying out assassinations and sabotage operations for decades.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/18/hezbollah-pagers-explode-has-israel-carried-out-such-attacks-before
‘Weaponising an object used by civilians is strictly prohibited’
While the pagers and walkie-talkies rigged to explode were used by Hezbollah members, there was no guarantee who was holding the device at the time it detonated.
Many of the casualties were not Hezbollah fighters but members of the group’s extensive civilian operations mainly serving Lebanon’s Shia community. At least two health workers were among those killed on Tuesday.
Doctors, nurses, paramedics, charity workers, teachers and office administrators work for Hezbollah-linked organisations, and an unknown number had pagers.
Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law and international peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, said booby traps are banned under international law. “Weaponising an object used by civilians is strictly prohibited,” she said.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, called for an independent investigation into the mass explosions, saying, “the fear and terror unleashed is profound”.
In the village of Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley, dozens gathered to mourn nine-year-old Fatima Abdullah, another victim of a pager blast. Her mother – wearing black and donning a yellow Hezbollah scarf – wept alongside other women and children as they gathered around the little girl’s coffin before her burial.
