Israel’s pager attack an intelligence triumph with uncertain ends
Precisely how Israel managed to pack explosives into thousands of pagers and put them in the hands of Hezbollah remains mysterious, but this much is clear: The intelligence operation will be remembered as one of the most audacious in modern history.
Israel has turned personal communications equipment into weapons before, notably in 1996 when it killed Hamas’ chief bombmaker with explosives hidden inside a cellphone. But this week’s simultaneous, covert strikes at Hezbollah figures across Lebanon were orders of magnitude more complicated, intelligence experts said, requiring Israel to convince the group that it had purchased and distributed ordinary beepers, not bombs.
The attack was followed the next day by another round of simultaneous detonations, this time with explosives apparently secreted inside walkie talkies, a rudimentary device that Hezbollah’s leaders may have thought afforded some protection from Israel’s electronic eavesdropping and spies, whose ability to turn cellphones into tracking devices had driven the group to use pagers in the first place.
Israel, which has neither claimed credit for the attacks nor denied responsibility, did not inform its most important allies in Washington in advance, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Privately, some of them have expressed a range of responses, from awestruck admiration that Israel could pull off such an ingenious plan, to anxiety that the brazen operation risks provoking a wider regional war.
“This is the most impressive kinetic operation I can recall in my career,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a retired CIA officer who served in counterterrorism roles in the Middle East. “The scope was staggering.”
The innovation was perhaps not technological, so much as a feat of logistics and creativity. The operation suggests that a country or group with the appropriate resources and patience could replicate Israel’s handiwork and convert ordinary devices into weapons.
In one move, Israel demonstrated not only that it had penetrated Hezbollah’s communications systems, but that it could turn those very devices against its enemy, killing or sidelining its members. Video of the explosions spread within minutes across social media, a public humiliation of Israel’s adversary.
“Israeli intelligence is living in [Hasan] Nasrallah’s brain,” Polymeropoulos said of the Hezbollah chief, who angrily insisted in a Thursday address that the attack “crossed all red lines” but has yet to marshal a forceful response.
White House officials were impressed by the operation, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions. But senior aides still believe it is unclear what Israel’s broader strategy is in Lebanon, and some expressed frustration that Israel acted amid months of painstaking efforts by the United States to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, which would see the release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for jailed Palestinians and a surge of humanitarian aid to the devastated enclave.
U.S. officials also noted with angst that, for nearly a year, the White House and allies have worked to tamp the flames in Lebanon. Hezbollah, which is a prominent political force in the country and considered to be the largest and best-armed militant group in the region, has to date only engaged Israel in sporadic, though deadly, cross-border fire.
Some officials have questioned how much the United States should support Israel if that conflict spirals into a broader war that drags in the Americans even further.
“The U.S. will have to decide how much they want to do to help Israel, and I don’t know what the answer to that is,” said one outside American adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “They’ll likely continue to supply Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself, but there are serious voices in the administration who wonder, ‘Israel did this to themselves - why should we help them?’”
The pager operation may prove to be a superb tactical maneuver with little strategic payoff.
Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general, called it a “brilliant intelligence move and a tradecraft triumph.” But he questioned how it would serve Israel’s overall goals for the conflict in Lebanon. At the top of that list is stopping Hezbollah’s relentless missile and drone attacks into the north of Israel and pushing fighters away from the border so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to the homes they fled after the Oct. 7 attacks, when Hezbollah began firing into Israel in solidarity with Hamas.
Some people familiar with the planning of the beeper operation have suggested it was envisioned as disabling the group’s command and control ability - the opening salvo in a conventional military campaign intended to push Hezbollah fighters out of range of Israeli towns along the northern border. Israel has not launched any new ground operations in Lebanon this week. But Thursday saw one of the heaviest days of airstrikes since the conflict began, with Israeli jets pummeling Hezbollah rocket launchers.
On Friday, Israeli officials announced that an airstrike in a Beirut suburb had killed Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for his role in deadly bombings against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and a Marine barracks there in 1983. Aqil and other Radwan commanders had been “gathered underground under a residential building,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagarisaid, raising the prospect that Israel had eliminated a significant portion of the unit’s leadership.
Despite the physical and psychological blows Israel dealt to Hezbollah this week, the group maintains a formidable military capability and the potential to rain thousands of rockets and missiles on targets across Israel. By many estimations, Hezbollah is the most heavily armed non-state actor in the world.
But practically speaking, some experts questioned if the group has the capability to launch a massive retaliation, at least for now, considering Israel has killed or taken out of commission senior Hezbollah figures who would be essential for mounting a military campaign. The beeper and radio attacks also have deprived the group of some of its ability to communicate. That may explain why so many Radwan commanders apparently chose to meet in person, where they risked being killed.
“The likelihood Hezbollah can initiate full-scale war right now is diminished,” said Matthew Levitt, a leading expert on the group at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Part of the genius [of the pager operation] is that it’s a huge shock to the system - personnel, communications. And that last part makes it very difficult to respond.”
Rather than following up with a full-scale attack, Israel could be pursuing an assault on Hezbollah in stages, while it is knocked back on its heels, Levitt said.
Some have also speculated that turning Hezbollah’s communications system against it may have been intended to deter the group. “My sense is that this was designed to send a message, and not necessarily operational preparation of the environment for a move into Lebanon,” Polymeropoulos said. “Israel has escalated to de-escalate, delivering a warning to Hezbollah that they have them totally compromised, and that war would be disastrous.”
So far, Hezbollah appears diminished, but it’s not clear they are deterred. Nasrallah has promised a significant response, decrying the Israeli sneak attacks as an act of war.
One senior European diplomat with experience in the Middle East said that the Israelis tend to think that if they just hit their enemies hard enough, they will deter them from bad actions. But history suggests they don’t always get the message, said the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly assess an ally.
Orion, the retired Israeli general and now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that if the beeper operation was an act of deterrence rather than the beginning of an invasion, Israel may wasted a precious weapon.
“This card has now been played,” he said of the pager attack. Hezbollah members were ordered to throw away their pagers and are now alert to Israeli attempts to compromise their devices. “Was it worth burning a first-class opening move without the benefit of a follow on or parallel offensive?”
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Yasmeen Abutaleb contributed to this report.