What Experts Make of Israel’s ‘Ingenious’ Hezbollah Pager Attack

Israel’s astonishing attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon on Tuesday culminated in the explosion of thousands of Hezbollah terrorists’ pagers. It left at least nine dead and 2,800 injured, according to the latest reports.

But it left many wondering why it wasn’t followed by a larger offensive incursion into Lebanon, from which Hezbollah has for the past 11 months launched near-daily rocket and drone attacks that have driven tens of thousands of Israeli civilians from their homes in northern Israel. For months, Israelis have been bracing for a second-front war against Hezbollah, the Washington Free Beacon‘s Andrew Tobin reported in March, and Tuesday’s events raise obvious questions about what Israeli officials intended to communicate about their intentions.

We asked some of the smartest foreign policy experts we know what they made of the situation. Here’s what they said.

• Elliott Abrams, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, former U.S. Envoy to Iran: “Israel has been re-establishing deterrence since it was badly undermined last Oct. 7. Like the recent assassinations in Lebanon and Iran, and Israel’s attack on some Iranian air defense sites in April, this attack is meant to remind Hezbollah of Israel’s technical sophistication and its willpower. Israel is trying to make it clear to Hezbollah and Iran that it does not fear escalation. Hezbollah will respond, but this attack will make them realize they are more vulnerable than they think.”
• Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: “It was obviously a major feat to pull off this technology. The Mossad was able to manipulate the Hezbollah supply chain when they purchased these pagers. This was what I consider to be a zero-days exploit—use it or lose it. And now there are thousands of injured Hezbollahis. The question now is whether this leads to escalation. The northern border has been on a knife’s edge for eleven months since Oct. 8, when Hezbollah began shooting rockets, missiles, and drones at Israel. Does this bring us closer to war? Nobody knows.”
• Gabriel Noronha, fellow, Jewish Institute for the National Security of America, former State Department official: “Hezbollah’s security vulnerabilities run deep. This latest incident demonstrates the extent to which Israel has penetrated their networks. The psychological damage will be just as immense as the physical damage to Hezbollah operatives.”
• Joe Truzman, research analyst, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: “It’s certainly possible the attack on Hezbollah can escalate into a full-blown war. Israel demonstrated that it could have attacked Hezbollah further by targeting strategic sites following the mass confusion created by the pager blasts. However, it chose not to. It’s in Israel’s interest not to initiate a full-blown war, and I think Hezbollah is avoiding such an escalation as well. If Hezbollah responds, I don’t think it will be a knee-jerk reaction, and it will try to limit the response so that it won’t trigger an escalation of the ongoing conflict. However, mistakes often happen in conflict. It’s a slippery slope for both actors.”
• David Schenker, former State Department assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs: “This appears to be a well-conceived interdiction of supply chains that was done not only conceptually well, but executed with great competence. Israel did the operational preparation, laid the groundwork, and when you have these things in place, if you don’t use it, you might lose it. This is another in the growing list of Hezbollah’s humiliations. Hezbollah is asking itself today whether it wants this war. All they have to do is fire a missile into Tel Aviv and we’re there. Israel itself is demonstrating that it is willing to climb the escalatory ladder.”

Israel has a long history of using explosive phones and other devices to kill terrorists, according to Ronen Bergman’s Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations. In 2001, Israel blew up a pay phone used regularly by Iyad Haradan, an Islamic Jihad commander. In a 1996 operation, the Mossad planted an explosive cell phone on Yahua Ayyah, Hamas’s top bomb maker at the time. As far back as 1972, Israel planted a bomb in a telephone used by Mahmoud Hamshari, a terror leader who was assassinated in Paris.