Mid-afternoon on Tuesday, Hezbollah pagers exploded across Lebanon.
The Lebanese organization had no idea what hit it.
Whoever planned and set up this simultaneous multifront strike had doubtless been holding this capability in check, waiting for months – if not years – for the right moment to strike.
Advances in hacking capabilities
In recent years, there have been tremendous advances in cell phone hacking capabilities, which can be incredibly damaging.
Already between the years 2009-2010, the US and Israel hacked and destroyed over 1,000 Iranian nuclear centrifuges. The US later hacked a critical Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence-gathering naval vessel.
On May 9, 2020, Iran’s Shahid Rajaee seaport was shut down, causing massive delays and economic damage for months, and on October 30, 2021, 4,300 Iranian gas stations nationwide were hacked and shut down.
In the hard-hitting conflicts of the 21st century, whoever wields the latest cutting-edge technological weapons can run circles around their otherwise formidable enemies.
Tuesday’s events occurred only hours after the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed that Hezbollah had tried to assassinate a top Israeli ex-defense chief. Shortly before the explosions, there were reports of a special meeting between Mossad director David Barnea and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Given the juxtaposition in the timing and the last few hysterical hours in Israel about a security situation with Lebanon, is it possible that Israel carried out its second attack on Hezbollah in Beirut? And, could this be in direct retaliation for Hezbollah’s failed assassination attempt, or rather, on the heels of nearly a year of the origination firing at Israel?
The last time the Jewish state attacked Beirut was on July 30, when it assassinated Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in retaliation for the Majdal Shams rocket attack, which killed 12 Druze children.
This nearly exploded into a full-scale war between the sides on August 25. Still, the IDF managed a preemptive strike that substantially reduced Hezbollah’s ability to fire more than a fraction of the rockets that it had intended to direct at Israel, including at northern Tel Aviv.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has pledged that any attack on Beirut would be met with a massive counter-strike.
Will he keep his promise, or will Hezbollah back down, given that it started this round with an attempted assassination, and given the IDF’s success against Hezbollah on August 25?
Another question that remains is: What is the endgame for the entity standing behind the explosive devices incident in Beirut? Will this be a knock-out punch on its own, or will this be a bloody hit that will leave Hezbollah still standing, the dilemma of war between Israel and Lebanon still reaming up in the air, though possibly closer than ever?
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