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Home » More fallout from the pager/walkie-talkie attacks

More fallout from the pager/walkie-talkie attacks

The New Neo Posted on by

The more I think about it, the more audacious and astounding Israel’s recent attack on Hezbollah operatives seems. There’s little doubt this has been the largest and most precisely targeted attack on a terrorist group in history. Brilliantly planned and executed, the modus operandi ensures that there was very little collateral damage. It’s almost impossible to imagine a more targeted attack on terrorists.

And yet it’s drawing criticism from those who already hate Israel. Ironically, the same people who think Israel’s more conventional military efforts in Gaza have too high a ratio of citizens to terrorists also can’t stand this ratio which is extremely small. For example:

“This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines U.S. efforts to prevent a wider conflict,” Ocasio-Cortez stated. “Congress needs a full accounting of the attack, including an answer from the State Department as to whether any U.S. assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which was among the organizations that blamed Israel for being attacked on October 7, called for the Biden administration “to condemn the Israeli government for killing children and maiming numerous civilians in Lebanon by detonating bombs reportedly placed in pagers without any regard for innocent life.”

Hezbollah has been lobbing rockets into Israel for years and has stepped it up post-10/7 to the point where many thousands of Israelis have had to flee their homes in the north for nearly a year, with no end in sight. The attacks by Hezbollah are terrorism, and have no military targets. They recently killed 12 children on a soccer field.

From Israel’s defenders:

“If Israel was responsible, then on available information these seem to be incredibly precise. Rules on targeting are principally necessity, distinction and proportionality,” Natasha Hausdorff, a barrister in the United Kingdom and legal director of UK Lawyers for Israel, told JNS.

“It is hard to imagine a better means of targeting Hezbollah operatives, whoever is behind the exploding devices,” Hausdorff said. “I would ask these individuals which international law they claim was violated.”

There is no such claim that is valid, but that doesn’t matter to Israel-haters.

I have some theories, though, about why this particular attack makes a lot of people uneasy, even those who acknowledge that it isn’t a violation of the laws of war, and that Hezbollah operatives are terrorists. The first involves its newness; there is something frightening about an attack that seems like something out of a science fiction action film. The second involves the obviously grisly aspect of the maiming that is involved, in which terrorists lost hands, eyes, and genitalia. The third involves the mechanism of delivery: communication devices. We can identify, because even though most of us don’t have pagers or walkie-talkies, we have cellphones that we carry around on our persons, especially in pockets. There’s been a lot of speculation on whether this could be done by China with cellphones, for example. Lastly, there’s a way in which it feeds into classic anti-Semitic memes of Jews as being diabolically clever and capable of nefarious action at a distance.

Israel is condemned by many people no matter what it does, but it’s in a fight for its very survival and it will do what it needs to do.

Until now it’s been assumed that the pagers were ordered through a foreign company – variously reported as having been in Taiwan and/or Hungary – and shipments were somehow intercepted and the explosives were added. But a competing explanation is that Hezbollah actually got pagers that were manufactured by Israelis, who set up a shell company for that purpose quite some time ago. From a story in the NY Times:

Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.

By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.

B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.

The pagers began shipping to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small numbers, but production was quickly ramped up after Mr. Nasrallah denounced cellphones.

Astounding. Israel has also said it has other tricks up its sleeve:

“We still have many capabilities that we have not yet activated,” Lt. Gen. Halevi assured Wednesday.

I have to imagine that this possibility strikes fear into not just Hezbollah, but terrorists all over the Arab world. It doesn’t seem like empty bragging at this point, does it?

Comments

More fallout from the pager/walkie-talkie attacks — 31 Comments

  1. Unlike indiscriminate rocket attacks, the easiest way not to be targeted through your pager is not to be part of Hezbollah’s organization.

    Now it’s true that undoubtedly some innocent people were standing too closely to people in Hezbollah when their pagers blew up. War sucks. But one side maximizes civilian casualties and brags about it, and the other tries to minimize them, and there you are.

  2. A thread of 6 (7) parts, though expanding those parts sequentially is required. Still, the story is worth that small effort. Doranimated: https://x.com/Doranimated/status/1836725630001381576

    Part the first, after which you’re on your own:

    A few thoughts on Operation Grim Beeper.

    1) This is one of the most astonishing intelligence operations in history. It is a reworking of the story of the Trojan Horse for the digital age, and it deserves to become nearly as legendary as its iconic predecessor. If we are not utterly astounded, it is because we have seen too many James Bond and Black Mirror movies for our own good.

    In real life, operations like this just don’t happen. It is at least four operations in one.

    First, the Israelis thoroughly mapped Hezbollah’s supply chain.

    Second, they invented a special explosive charge small enough to be inserted inside a handheld device, sophisticated enough to be remotely activated, big enough to do real harm, and yet not so prominent physically or electronically to call attention to itself.

    Third, the Israelis turned themselves into a big enough link in Hezbollah’s procurement network to take physical control of the devices and rig them.

    Fourth, they activated the charges simultaneously and across a very wide geographic area.

    If any one of these sub-operations had been botched, the operation as a whole would have fizzled. Who else in the world could pull off such an imaginative, technically sophisticated and audacious plot?

  3. This was a remarkable operation. Thousands of terrorists were injured, and tens were killed, with very little collateral damage. And it’s got to be terrifying to Hezbollah members. Of course, their simplest remedy would be to leave Hezbollah and stop trying to kill Israelis.

    On a satirical note:
    https://instapundit.com/673363/

  6. Absolutely brilliant by the Israelis. Too bad we don’t have any of their imagination and expertise in out intelligence and military services where everyone is more concerned about Orange Man and pronouns.

  7. Sdferr: “ Who else in the world could pull off such an imaginative, technically sophisticated and audacious plot?”

    As my mother would say “. A Yiddisha Kopf”

  9. There has to be a follow on from this by the Israelis coming real soon. After this many Hezzies have been put out of action it would be the perfect time to launch a massive invasion into Lebanon to wipe out Hezbola once and for all.

    On the am radio this morning there were reports that the Christians that are left in Lebanon were handing out candy to celebrate.

  10. Terrorist: “A person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”

    Unlawful combatant: A person who doesn’t wear a uniform or a clear insignia of his status. One who conceals his weapon/weapons. A person who doesn’t follow the rules of war under the Geneva Convention.

    Terrorists are unlawful combatants. And unlawful combatants have no rights to protection by the Geneva Conventions or the rules of war between nations. This is a case of terrorists being terrorized by the people they’re trying to eliminate through terrorism. There’s no international law or agreement to protect them.

    The jihadi terrorists need to accept the fact that they’re not able to beat the Israelis in normal combat, and their attempts at terrorizing them have been fruitless. Fundamental Islam is a dead end. They just don’t realize it. And those who hate Israel are in the same sinking boat.

    The Hamas supporters on college campuses and in our Congress need to wake up to the reality that Isarel is a legitimate country and a beacon of democracy and freedom in a region of authoritarian governments.

  12. I wonder if Hezbollah leaders are proficient with smoke signals?

    I can picture them telling one of their wives or Concubines, ‘answer that incoming call, woman’.

  14. It’s probably been 20 or more years since I read the article, so I have forgotten the source. Might have been “Vanity Fair” back when it was good.

    The U.S. military realized computer tech was getting good enough that a remotely piloted “drone” fighter and/or bomber might be possible. A lot of the expense of making an airplane is in the stuff required to protect the humans onboard and keep them alive. A drone would theoretically be cheaper for that reason. Also, since they don’t have to carry passengers, drones can be smaller than conventional aircraft, making it easier to avoid radar and defense systems.

    So the Pentagon threw a huge budget at either the Army or the Air Force and they hired the usual suspects (Lockheed, McDonnel Douglas, etc.) and after about 7 years they still had no working prototype and little to show for all that time and money. Then they discovered the Israelis already had successful drone weapons in their arsenal.

    Why did a tiny country like Israel succeed where the largest military force with the largest budget in the world failed? The Israelis had to be ingenuous because they lacked resources.

    The Pentagon took the approach of trying to shrink a conventional fighter jet or bomber. The Israelis gave a small budget to two men and they began with already existing components used by remote control plane hobbyists.

    This story shows a similar ingenuity. Start with something inexpensive that already exists and exploit it for a military purpose. Ukraine has been similarly successful against Russia with a similar approach.

  15. sdferr
    See link for photo of and quote from UN Sec-Gen

    UN CHIEF: “Civilian objects should not be weaponized”

    Hezbollah uses those “civilian objects” (pagers, etc.) to further its military goal of the destruction of the state of Israel. As such, Hezbollah has “weaponized” those ostensibly “civilian objects.”

  16. I tried to find the article I read, but no luck. It’s very possible it was never copied to the world wide web.

    This, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israels-eyes-how-the-drone-went-from-a-toy-to-the-idfs-greatest-tool-641742
    however, is a very interesting article on the topic. It’s a different take then the one I read, from the perspective of the U.S., but equally interesting. I think Shabtai Brill was one of the men I read about.

    No one in the world at the time had operational reconnaissance drones like Israel’s, not even the United States. That would take a few more years, and they would eventually come from Israel and be made by Harari and his IAI colleagues.

  19. While I admire Israel’s audacity, it raises two questions:
    1. When will TSA ban laptops, tablets and mobile phones from commercial flights? and
    2. How long before our three-letter agencies use this tactic against the deplorables?

  20. According to Wikipedia, the first unmanned aerial attack was with incendiary balloons used by Austria against Venice in 1849. Remotely piloted aircraft first used in WWI. Drone warfare has been in the works for a while. Imagine a drone the size of a wasp armed with a drop of nerve agent…

    I managed to get stung 4 times this summer.

  22. An interesting movie was “Eye in the sky,” which was about drones, some of them as small as bumblebees. About the same time, I was still doing H&Ps on military recruits. One guy was joining the AF Reserves and was an engineer at a tech company. I mentioned the movie and he assured me he was working on those miniature drones.

  23. The only side effect of these attacks that I’ve noticed is that the “Israel was behind 9/11” crowd is attempting to gain some legitimacy again…

  24. May God bless and save Israel.

    For those of you who don’t know, CAIR is a Muslim propaganda organization.

  27. Someone please remind me what UN resolution 1701 (2006) was all about. Something about clearing Hezbollah out of Southern Lebanon?

    I’m sure the UN has the best people on it! The best!

    “What is the virtue of proportional response?” Pres. Bartlett, The West Wing.

    Oh! and I just read that Dr. Jill had to take over the Cabinet meeting from Old Joe today.

    (I am feeling really sarcastic today)

  30. If AOC had been around at the time of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, she would have charged the Jews with war crimes for pouring boiling water on the Nazi troops.

  31. “They convinced Hez they were being tracked by their cellphones. They supplied Hez with “safer” pagers. Then they blew up the pagers. Hez then switched to walkies. Israel anticipated that, and pre-placed explosive walkies. Israel blew up the walkies. Hez decided all electronic comms were unsafe, so they held in-person meetings. THEN ISRAEL BLEW UP THE IN PERSON MEETINGS.”

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