Israel launched a series of heavy strikes on Hezbollah military infrastructure in the suburbs of Beirut between Saturday evening and Sunday. Some 30 shells crossed into Israel from Lebanon.
Israel is expanding its operations in Lebanon. On Saturday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) carried out its first strike on the northern city of Tripoli, according to Lebanese security official. The Israeli military, for their part, confirmed conducting a series of pinpoint strikes near the Lebanese capital Beirut overnight, saying their targets were weapons depots and other Hezbollah infrastructure.
Nearly eight strikes hit suburbs of the capital, including a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport and another building formerly used by Hezbollah-controlled broadcaster Al-Manar. An Arabic-speaking IDF spokesman issued new orders to evacuate residents in several neighbourhoods ahead of what he said were strikes on targets belonging to the Iranian-backed militant group.
Israel confirmed it had stepped up its offensive against Hezbollah to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to homes in northern Israel, which the group has bombed since 8 October last year. Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Saturday 5 October that the IDF had killed 440 Hezbollah fighters in its ground operations in southern Lebanon and destroyed 2,000 Hezbollah targets.
A Saturday strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli killed a Hamas member, his wife and two children, according to a Lebanese security official. Media affiliated with the Palestinian group said the strike killed the leader of its armed wing, identifying him as Saeed Atallah. Two Hamas members operating in Lebanon were also killed, but there was no comment yet from the group.
Shortly after the Israeli strikes, Hezbollah said in a statement that it had successfully hit a group of Israeli soldiers near the settlement of Manara in northern Israel with a volley of rockets, accurately hitting the targets. Besides, Hezbollah claimed to have fired rockets at the so-called “ATA company for military industries near Sakhnin base” close to Haifa.
Details of the Pagers blast on 17 September
Apollo’s new range of pagers seemed perfectly suited to the needs of a militia group with an extensive network of fighters and a well-earned reputation for paranoia, according to The Washington Post. Hezbollah leaders seemed so impressed that they purchased 5,000 of them and began distributing them to mid-level fighters and support staff in February. In this way, none of the users suspected they were carrying a skilfully crafted Israeli bomb.
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service responsible for combating foreign threats to the Jewish state, had been working for years to embed electronic monitoring and informants in the group. The group had been searching for a suitable device that would be tamper-proof because of its fears. So, Mossad came up with a couple of tricks that would force the militant group to acquire devices that seemed ideal for the job – equipment that Mossad had designed and assembled in Israel.
The first part of the plan – mined walkie-talkies – began to be deployed in Lebanon by Mossad almost a decade ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained huge batteries, hidden explosives, and a transmission system that gave Israel full access to Hezbollah’s communications. For nine years, the Israelis were content to eavesdrop on Hezbollah, reserving the option of turning the radios into bombs in the event of a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a shiny new product: a small pager equipped with powerful explosives.
So, the United States, Israel, and any other ally could not be a supplier of the device to the group because of possible sabotage. In 2023, the group began receiving proposals for the bulk purchase of Taiwan-branded Apollo pagers, a well-known brand name and product line with worldwide distribution and no apparent ties to Israeli or Jewish interests. The Taiwanese company was unaware of the plan, officials said.
The offer of sale came from a trusted marketing person associated with Apollo. The woman, the identity and nationality of whom officials declined to disclose, was a former sales representative in the Middle East for a Taiwanese firm that set up its own company and acquired a licence to sell a line of Apollo-branded pagers. In 2023, she offered Hezbollah a deal for one of the products her firm was selling – the AR924 model.
None of the users suspected that the devices carried a cleverly crafted Israeli bomb. Even after thousands of devices exploded in Lebanon and Syria, few appreciated the pagers’ most sinister feature: a two-step decryption procedure that ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it exploded.
According to Israeli, US and Middle Eastern officials, some 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members were killed or maimed, as well as an unknown number of civilians, when Israel’s Mossad intelligence service remotely detonated the devices on 17 September.
One-year anniversary of the crisis
The IDF has increased the scale of its strikes on Lebanon in recent weeks after nearly one year of exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, which began carrying out strikes in support of its ally Hamas a day after the group triggered the ongoing war in Gaza with its terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that left more than 42,000 Palestinians dead and nearly all of the 2.3 million residents of the enclave displaced.
As a result, the IDF has been conducting night bombardments of the once densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut. Hence, nearly a week of Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon and two weeks of airstrikes have resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 people, the country’s health ministry said. Apart from, the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was killed, while his potential successor, Hashem Safieddine, has not been in touch since Friday.
On Tuesday, Israel launched a limited ground operation in southern Lebanon. The military says nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in close combat over the past few days in the area, crammed with weapons and explosives.
The humanitarian situation in the country is alarming. Some 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced since Israel stepped up its strikes in late September, including tens of thousands under Israeli evacuation orders in nearly 100 towns and villages near the border. The impact on civilians has sparked mass protests around the world. Thousands took to the streets of major cities around the world on Saturday as the anniversary approached.
