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Israel can’t hit thousands of people in a pager attack and ‘not think war is coming’

Any expansion of the war to the north would appear to be premised on the view that Israel has largely achieved its objectives in Gaza, but it’s far from clear that is the case

A Hizbullah supporter at a funeral for four people killed in the pager attacks, in Beirut, on Wednesday. Photograph: Diego Ibarra Sánchez/The New York Times
A Hizbullah supporter at a funeral for four people killed in the pager attacks, in Beirut, on Wednesday. Photograph: Diego Ibarra Sánchez/The New York Times
Vincent Durac
Sat Sept 21 2024 - 06:00

In quick succession earlier this week, pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices exploded across Lebanon, killing 42 people including children and injuring thousands of others, in a series of attacks on Hizbullah that have been attributed to Israel. These were followed on Thursday by dozens of Israeli air strikes on Hizbullah targets in southern Lebanon.

Uncertainty still surrounds the precise nature of the explosions of the wireless devices. There has been considerable speculation that the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, intercepted them before they were handed over to Hizbullah, thus enabling them to place a small quantity of highly explosive material on the batteries of the devices.

However, it was subsequently reported by The New York Times that the Hungarian firm that apparently supplied pagers to Hizbullah was in reality a front set up by figures in Israeli intelligence, suggesting that rather than merely tampering with the devices, Israel actually manufactured them. The pagers produced for Hizbullah contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers who spoke to the newspaper.

We may not know the full truth for quite some time. And quite why Israel launched these attacks now remains less than clear.

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CCTV captured the moment a man's bag exploded in a supermarket in Beirut, as reports of Hizbullah members' pagers exploding were seen region-wide. Video: Reuters

Most observers inside and outside Israel see the attacks as a possible precursor to an expansion of the war in Gaza to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Specifically, the fear is that this week’s events represent the opening shots of an escalation of the conflict with Hizbullah, a conflict that has witnessed cross-border fire on an almost daily basis since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last October.

Late last Monday, at the behest of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli security cabinet updated the objectives of the war to include the return home of some 60,000 residents of the north of the country who have been evacuated in response to Hizbullah attacks from Lebanon. The decision to include the safe return of residents to the north came a day after the Israeli minister for defence, Yoav Gallant, told a visiting US envoy, Amos Hochstein, that negotiations were no longer a viable strategy to restore calm on the border with Lebanon, and that the only option was through military action.

While the US has repeated its concerns about the dangers of an escalation of the conflict, others take a different view. A retired Israeli brigadier-general, Amir Avivi, who leads the Israel Defense and Security Forum, a group of hawkish former military commanders, commented this week that Israel can’t hit thousands of people “and not think war is coming”, adding that “Israel is ready for war.”

Should Israel become involved in full-scale conflict with Hizbullah, it would not be the first time and would not come without cost. Since its emergence in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, Hizbullah has cultivated a reputation as defender of the interests of Lebanon’s historically marginalised Shia Muslim population. It is also seen as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty more broadly in the face of threat from western and Israeli forces. To this end, it has frequently engaged in direct confrontation with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

While Meshaal’s claim that Hamas is winning in Gaza must be treated with some scepticism, others argue that, at the very least, Israel is not winning the war

In 2000, Israel was forced into withdrawal from south Lebanon by local resistance, including that of Hizbullah. Israel had initially invaded Lebanon in 1978 in an effort to drive the Palestinian Liberation Organisation out of the country. Its unilateral withdrawal 22 years later marked the first time that it had withdrawn voluntarily from Arab territory without concessions or a peace treaty.

In 2006, Hizbullah abducted two Israeli soldiers, prompting an Israeli response which led to a 34-day war, resulting in the deaths of 160 Israelis and at least 1,100 Lebanese, ending in stalemate. However, despite the enormous cost to Lebanon, the fact that Hizbullah withstood the might of the IDF, and survived, increased the movement’s prestige across the Middle East.

Lebanon explosions: What we know about the pager attacks

Listen | 19:06

At least 26 people are dead and thousands injured following the simultaneous detonating of pagers and walkie talkies in Lebanon. Hannah McCarthy reports from Beirut for The Irish Times. Security analyst Colin P. Clark of New York’s Soufan Center looks at why Israel made this move.Presented by Aideen Finnegan. Produced by Declan Conlon and Aideen Finnegan.

The attacks this week have both humiliated Hizbullah and raised concern about its possible response. Unsurprisingly, Hassan Nasrallah has promised “tough retribution and just punishment” without specifying what form this might take.

Notwithstanding the destruction that has been occasioned to its communications systems – not to mention the vulnerability that appears to have been exposed by the Israeli attacks – Hizbullah retains a very substantial paramilitary apparatus and is considered to be the most heavily armed non-state actor in the world. According to best estimates, it has about 20,000 active fighters and claims to be able to mobilise up to 100,000. Many of its fighters have had military experience in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. It is reported to possess some 150,000 rockets and missiles compared with 15,000 on the eve of the 2006 war with Israel.

[ Israel bombards southern Lebanon after Hizbullah chief vows ‘punishment’ ]

Any expansion of the war to the north would appear to be premised on the view that Israel has largely achieved its objectives in Gaza. However, there are those who dispute this. In an interview in Doha with the New York Times, the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, argued that Hamas, in fact, has the upper hand. His reasoning is that simply by surviving Hamas is winning the war – and clearly, Hamas has managed to do this, at least for the time being. He pointed out that, at the outset of the conflict, the US supported Netanyahu in his insistence that Hamas must be eliminated, whereas now both Israel and the US negotiate with Hamas. Meshaal added that Hamas would not give up on its central demands for an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

While Meshaal’s claim that Hamas is winning in Gaza must be treated with some scepticism, others argue that, at the very least, Israel is not winning the war.

In May of this year, opposition politician and former deputy chief of Mossad, Ram Ben Barak, argued that Israel was “unequivocally” losing the war, which lacked any clear objective. In an interview earlier this week, major-general Gadi Shamni, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, effectively agreed with Meshaal’s analysis, saying that Hamas was winning the war while Israel was losing it “and in a big way”. Hamas members were retaking towns across Gaza as soon as Israeli forces withdrew.

In support of this, US news sources recently cited the view of a senior Israeli defence official that “we are losing the war, we are losing deterrence, we are losing the hostages”, while warning against expansion of the conflict to Lebanon because “war is easy to start, but very hard to end”.

Despite all this, there is no sign that Netanyahu is ready come to an agreement with Hamas. Indeed, on Wednesday, he was forced to reject an accusation in an Israeli television news report that he was “torpedoing” a potential deal.

Far from bringing the conflict in Gaza to an end, the Israeli prime minister seems more anxious to prolong and escalate the war.

Dr Vincent Durac lectures in Middle East politics in the UCD school of politics and international relations