Inside Israel’s pager and walkie talkie attacks

The operation took years of work, and was individually directed at the Hezbollah men who were wounded or killed.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

New details about the years-long effort Israel put into its alleged pager-walkie talkie attacks on Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, emerged in a Saturday night report by Channel 12.

Israel knew that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had ordered his men to stop using cellular devices years ago and move to more primitive devices out of fear that Israel could compromise the terror organization’s communications.

According to Ronen Bergman, an investigative reporter for The New York Times and Yedioth Ahronoth cited in the report, instead of trying to intercept deliveries of beepers and walkie talkies to tamper with them, Israel decided to create a factory that produced them, with all the special changes included, and attract Hezbollah operatives to make a large purchase.

Creating the devices was a hugely challenging technical task, a senior foreign security official told the news channel.

“The operation handled tens of thousands of pagers,” the official said. “This is a worldwide operation that included a lot of technologies that were supposed to undergo acceptance tests at the customer, to hide explosive and spying mechanisms – without the devices being overweight [or] having a different shape – and that they could be used in the normal way.”

According to another foreign official, the report said, the attacks were also very carefully calibrated in order to strike only terrorists.

“Each pager has its own serial number,” the official said. “That way it was possible to control who would be hit and wouldn’t be.”

Although videos showed how people standing next to victims were unhurt when their devices exploded, Lebanese media reported that at least two youngsters were killed in the Tuesday attack.

It is possible that they were bringing the beeping pagers to their owners when they detonated.

Possibly in line with the idea that individuals were deliberately targeted, Qatar Airways is reportedly now not allowing anyone boarding their planes from Lebanon’s international airport to have either beepers or walkie talkies, in their carry-ons or checked luggage.

It had also been widely reported that the IDF pushed the button that caused the thousands of communication devices to explode, killing at least 30 and wounding over 3,000, because Israel was afraid that its tampering was about to be discovered.

Citing a senior foreign official who spoke with one of the operation’s commanders, the report said that this was not true.

“I spoke with several senior officials who strongly maintain that the operation was under threat of exposure every few months, this was nothing new,” the official said. “There was indeed concern, but it was on the table at the highest levels even beforehand, because the army is not managing to defeat Hezbollah. There was a need to shift gears and this was one of the options on the table.”

The point, said Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, a former head of Military Intelligence, was to cause Nasrallah to “understand that continuing to fire on the north costs him much more than what he gains” by continuing to fire rockets and UAVs at Israel.

The Iranian terror proxy has launched well over 8,000 airborne threats of various types from Lebanon in the 11+ months since the war began, driving 60,000 Israelis out of their homes on the border to limbo in hotels and other temporary places of safety further south.

One major cost Israel is hoping for, said the report, is the erosion of support of the Lebanese people.

“There is no Shia house in Lebanon that does not contain at least one injured person. Some families are coming to Nasrallah and saying, ‘What the hell?’” said Bergman.

The attack also overloaded the country’s health system, with the thousands of injured rushed to hospitals in the immediate aftermath.

The considerable number who will need long-term care or rehabilitation services will also strain the system, perhaps contributing to the population’s further disenchantment with Hezbollah.

Israel isn’t done yet, either, as IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said on Wednesday.

The Jewish state has “many more capabilities” that it has yet to use against Hezbollah, and the army stands ready “to do whatever is required” to enable the evacuated residents in the north to finally return home “with a high level of security,” he said.

Hassan NasrallahHezbollah beeper explosionsMossad