The two-day round of explosions has underscored a major security weakness in Hezbollah, which has relied on low-tech devices like pagers and handheld radios to avoid Israeli surveillance and tracking.
Hezbollah has blamed the attacks on Israel, which has not publicly commented on the explosions.
The New York Times reported that Israel was behind the pager explosions Tuesday that killed 12 people, including two children, and injured some 2,800 others.
Israel reportedly briefed the U.S. after the pager attacks.
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Gerald Steinberg, President of NGO Monitor, and founder of the Conflict Management and Negotiations program at Israel’s Bar Ilan University, called the dual attacks on Hezbollah a “major operation.”
- “Nobody detected the fact that they had this extra explosive,” he said.
The AR-924 model pagers are from a Taiwanese company named Gold Apollo, which said it only licensed its technology to the product manufacturer, a relatively unknown Hungarian company called BAC Consulting KFT.
Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács said in a post on X that the “company in question is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary.”
The attacks this week are raising fears that a wider war is inching closer between Hezbollah and Israel, which have been trading fire over the border for nearly a year in a fight tied to the ongoing Gaza war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday the U.S. was not involved in the pager and radio attacks.
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Blinken said it was vital for all parties to avoid “any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we’re trying to resolve in Gaza.”
- “To see it spread to other fronts — it’s clearly not in the interest of anyone involved to see that happen,” he said.
The U.S. wants a diplomatic solution to the fighting with Hezbollah, but Israeli officials have made it a war goal to return their tens of thousands of displaced residents safely to the north. It’s unclear if diplomacy can accomplish that aim.
Hezbollah’s media office said in a separate statement that it would respond separately to the pager attacks.
- “What happened yesterday will increase our determination and resolve to continue on the path of jihad and resistance,” the statement said.
- Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah is expected to give a speech on Thursday.
Read the full story at TheHill.com.
