We are closer to you than your pocket.
The operation of detonating the pagers of Lebanese militia members and their affiliates in Lebanon and Syria, which took place on Tuesday, has intensified the existing tensions in the Middle East. An unprecedented event has occurred, and now all eyes are on the Lebanese militia to see the consequences of this special operation and the possible response from Nasrallah and his forces.
The successive explosions of pagers in the pockets and bags near the forces affiliated with the Lebanese militia, captured by store surveillance cameras and recorded by citizens, created a wave of concern in Lebanon. Several thousand were injured, and several were killed in this operation. The situation in Lebanon’s hospitals became so serious that a call for blood donations to help the wounded was issued, and images of blood bags being collected and sent to hospitals became part of the news on Tuesday. The hourly increase in the number of injured registered at Lebanon’s medical centers has been astonishing.
Reporters quickly began investigating the events and discovered that Israeli officials had not informed their American counterparts about this operation in advance. This was while Amos Hochstein, the most influential figure in the Biden team’s dealings with Israel and Lebanon, was in Tel Aviv negotiating with Israeli officials. Yoav Galant, Israel’s defense minister, who holds a precarious position and is close to being dismissed, had explicitly told Hochstein in face-to-face talks that despite the Biden team’s efforts, the situation on the Lebanese borders would escalate towards maximum confrontation. He did not inform Hochstein about the pager explosion operation.
An important point is that hours before the Israeli operation, Shin Bet revealed and thwarted a Lebanese militia operation that aimed to assassinate a former senior Israeli official. Images of the discovered and neutralized roadside bomb were being circulated when the news of the pager explosions arrived.
Given the known type of pagers, the manufacturing company, a Taiwanese firm, was identified. However, the manager of this company, unveiling various models produced by the company and explaining about the specific model in question, announced that the Lebanese militia pagers were not produced by this company. These pagers were made by a Hungarian company that had obtained production licenses from the Taiwanese company. The Hungarian company in question has not yet responded to any reporters. Considering the growing military cooperation between Iran and the government of Orbán, a dictator with a notorious reputation in international politics, the story of purchasing pagers from this Hungarian company is highly sensitive.
The critical hours of Wednesday are the hours of waiting to determine the definitive stance of the Lebanese militia regarding the Israeli operations. A well-known Israeli reporter from Axios, citing his sources, stated that the Israelis carried out the operation with full awareness of Hezbollah’s inevitable response. In the current situation, in the hours following the Israeli operation, Hezbollah remains in shock, and a significant part of the organization’s internal interactions and communications has been disrupted. Military and security experts are confident that the organizational communications of the Lebanese militia are facing a crisis because everything needs to be reviewed again, and any security gaps and potential threats must be identified. The fact that the pagers were used to prevent tracking and potential Israeli threats and were recently distributed among members is very bitter for this organization. Amid the news on Wednesday, Al-Monitor’s report on this Israeli operation caught attention, claiming that the Israeli team executing the operation concluded that the Lebanese militia might have become suspicious of these pagers and the possibility of their explosion and, fearing their plan being exposed, executed it earlier than scheduled.