Pagers used by Hezbollah exploded in unison in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday. Many were in the pockets of their terrorist owners. Thousands were wounded, and a smaller number were killed.
Hezbollah moved away from cell phones, believing that Israel could listen in even on encrypted conversations. Instead, they bought pagers from an Israeli front company that was placing small amounts of explosives in the devices intending to sell them to terrorists.
Why is this video of this Israeli mobile phone and electronics salesperson going viral? pic.twitter.com/52JJCPGA29
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 19, 2024
The pager attack was followed up by exploding terrorist walkie talkies and other personal electronic devices.
Here is not-Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on the attack:
BREAKING! WATCH Hassan Nasrallah's first reaction to the "pager attack" that struck thousands of Hezbollah fighters yesterday. pic.twitter.com/RbaN4W8rKu
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) September 18, 2024
Lebanon’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation has banned passengers departing from Beirut from traveling with walkie talkies and pagers – either with them into the cabin, or in checked luggage.
Effective immediately: Following the directive received from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of the Republic of Lebanon, all passengers flying from Beirut Rafic Harirl International Airport (BEY) are prohibited from carrying pagers and walkie-talkies on board flights.…
— Qatar Airways (@qatarairways) September 19, 2024
While some people whom I respect are concerned with sabotaging of electronic devices, this seems like one of the most targeted large-scale operations ever carried out in terms of having relatively few civilian casualties compared to the number of legitimate targets taken out. War always causes collateral damage. It’s often estimated at 9 civilians per military casualty while using Hamas figures which have very much been called into question it’s been closer to even in Gaza, and it’s clearly been far less than 1:1 here.
Any civilian deaths are regrettable, but also entirely the fault of the terrorists. Israel is far from the only enemy of Hezbollah, an Iran proxy: they bombed U.S. military barracks in Beirut killing 241 Americans, and bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut. They hijacked commercial airline flights, including TWA flight 847.
The UN Secretary-General condemned the operation, declaring that governments shouldn’t “weaponize civilian objects,” which is an odd thing to focus on since Hamas continues to use its own civilian population as human shields.
Personal electronic devices, by the way, are far from the major safety risk in Beirut aviation, and carrying them is likely far safer today than it was a week ago – we just didn’t realize it.
Nonetheless, I fully expect calls to broaden the ban put in place by Lebanon – to electronics broadly, and even wifi, out of fear that a connected device could be ordered to detonate.
You have to wonder what else may have been sabotaged. Like laptops, tablets, etc.
@Gary – I suspect the “weaponize civilian objects” was an assumption that these were not Hezbollah-specific devices. That assumption was incorrect. I fully expect a retraction of those statements, probably replaced with a statement about the regrettable loss of life amongst civilians.
Truly, well executed attacks deserving kudos for their extremely limited, targeted impact. Not perfect, but this is what war should look like today, not 2000 lb bombs being dropped on schools.
Easy solution is for the entire world to ban all electronic devices from ever coming into airports .
Ahmed has left the chat…
Muhammad has left the chat…
Faisal has left the chat…..
easier solution:
1. helsinki
2. two states
3. 1967 borders
4. replace killingry profit with livingry profit
Al Jazeera news: IDF performed “Brit Milah” to the entire Hezbollah leadership.
The good news: 72 virgins in Paradise get a lot less to worry about
LOL!
Great comments!
Maybe Hezbollah should switch to smoke signals…
It is the fault of Israeli terrorists. This is a violation of international law. Terrorism is terrorism. Don’t condemn one and excuse the other.
Gary! Thanks for writing about the pagers: that actually could be a concern if any do explode in flight … Hmmmm
Re the bigger picture of hatred & pointing fingers at isreal… I do need to respond…
I don’t understand how the world is so blind to fact that the pagers/walkie talkies were given to Hezbollah operatives, or Hezbollah associates. NO-ONE who was NOT Hezbollah was given them.
There are NO civilian casualties.
I am sad for loss of life and injury to these terrorists, however by carrying them they affiliated themselves with Hezbollah, and these pagers may have at other times carried messages for them to go out and kill people: Jews, Christians, Israelis, and others who are against Hezbollah or other terrorist entities. Meaning: if you affiliate yourself with evil and hatred, be prepared for consequences!
Isreal has the right to defend borders, and the situation in Lebanon is awful with Hezbollah now in control zof so much of what used to be a chic, tolerant country!
Re: hagberd celine comment above about 2 states… LET GO… Ham~as has clearly said NO to it, and UN accepting this fake entity calling itself “Palestine” is part of the wider hatred and evil growing in the world.
I wish more will understand that actually 2 states already existed from 20th century:
1. Arab “Palestine” = Jordan EAST of the river
2. Jewish “Palestine” = Israel WEST of river Jordan
End of story.
BTW “Palestine” coins actually say eretz yisrael = א”י = land of Israel!!
The mid east is about to be shook up as Isreal starts finally to roll up the sleeves and mean business!
Was really hoping for a takedown of OMAATs trash take on this topic.
How dare he call this a terror attack when it was the most targeted mass attack against terrorists in history?
When did Lucky become a terror simp?
@Jeff how is it terrorism, dummy?
Terrorists attack and threaten and kill civilians. IDF surgically removed a dozen, and emasculated a few thousands more, of terrorists. The ones who do exactly what terrorists do – hide behind civilians and kill women and children.
Some idiots never learn. Go join Hezbollah and get your member blown off as well.
I will limit my comments to strictly aviation. It never crossed my mind at all that one of these pagers might have gone off on a plane that was in flight, landing or taking off, or just sitting on the ground with passengers. While the pager itself might have belonged to a Hezbollah member, he would have been surrounded by innocent Lebanese civilians. That would have been an unintended catastrophic event. So, pretty amazing it did not happen. In the history of aviation, there were a good number of skyjackings and shootouts on planes perpetuated by Palestinian terrorists and victims were not necessarily Jewish or Israeli. Aviation needs to be safe…..at least in this case, the pager case, a plane was not brought down and innocents killed.
@Jeff – this was one of the most highly targeted attacks on an adversary in military history, and a direct contrast with the bombings undertaken by… Hezbollah.
“Governments shouldn’t weaponize civilian objects” is a bit rich coming from the guy whose own UNHWR employees kept hostages in their homes and participated in 07/10 attacks.
Does the Secretary General find the pager attack is the moral equivalence of Hamas randomly murdering 100s of young people at a music festival and decapitate babies? Or in the case of Hezbollah, to indiscriminately launch 100s of rockets at civilian population centers and murder 12 children on a soccer field?