While the conflict in Gaza continued, violent escalations in Lebanon were ramped up to a deadly level on September 17, where pager explosions killed nine people, including a 10-year-old girl targeting term Hezbollah operatives. The Lebanese authorities said that more than 2,750 people were injured, including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini.
After the explosions, many people began to carry the injured toward hospitals in panic. Hezbollah was quick to hold Israel responsible for the attacks, terming it the most devastating blow to its security in the past nine months. Ald Теперь well-funded reports suggest that Mossad had buried explosives in a shipment of Taiwanese-made pagers with a remote detonation system.
Hezbollah, which lost two operatives in the attack, sought to ensure that it would get ‘just punishment’ on the attackers.
This is not the first time communication devices have been used as a weapon; historical data proves it. Also, in the most infamous attack of Israel on Palestinians, Mossad assassinated the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s representative Mahmoud Hamshari when he was using a bomb on the phone in 1972.
Others are the assassination of Hamas bomb-maker Yehya Ayyash in 1996 and the assassination of Hamas leader Izz El-Din Shibl Al-Sheikh Khalil by an explosive device that had been planted in his mobile phone in 2004.
The recent pager bombings have sparked some concern on the issue of security and the working strategy in this ongoing war. The experts have opined that the Israeli intelligence might have penetrated the Hezbollah-related supply chain to facilitate this unusual strike.
