Washington claims it knew nothing of the unprecedented pager attack, but its unconditional support allowed it to…
On Tuesday, Israel was accused of detonating hundreds of wireless communication devices that were used primarily for civilian purposes, injuring more than 4,000 people. Although details are still being worked out, this attack will force Hezbollah to make important decisions in retaliation.
Less than a day after the Israeli security cabinet officially declared… adopted In a new attempt to return displaced residents to areas close to the Lebanese border, an indiscriminate attack was carried out across Lebanon. This indicates that the war in Gaza has expanded in the eyes of Israeli political and military leaders to include Lebanon. However, there are questions about how such an escalation will materialize.
The role of the United States
Commenting on the matter to reporters, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller He said that “The United States was not involved in this, the United States was not aware of this incident beforehand and we are currently gathering information.” He went so far as to suggest that the US government was gathering information just like journalists around the world do.
Even though Washington has distanced itself from the incident, it is almost comical that a US official informs the media that the Biden administration has no special information from its ally about the incident. If we take it at face value, it is a shameful admission that the ally to which the US has provided tens of billions of dollars in arms and aid over the past 11 months does not even have channels of dialogue to discuss an attack that could lead to a regional war.
Even if we assume that the US had no idea about the attack, which is doubtful, the mere fact that bipartisan US support for Israel throughout its war on Gaza has not budged in the face of overwhelming international condemnation is telling. Every organ of the United Nations has sounded the alarm, accusing Israel of committing war crimes, and even the UK has decided to cancel 30 of 350 arms licensing contracts for violations of international law.
While the United States has repeatedly stated that it seeks to reduce tensions and that it disapproves of a war between Israel and Lebanon, it is at best doing nothing to stop it. If the US government was really so aware of Israel's escalation measures and really wanted to stop a regional war, the wake-up call should have come by the end of July.
When Israel bombed a civilian apartment building in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, killing Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr, and only hours later assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Hanniyeh in Tehran, that would have been the moment when the Americans pressured the Israelis to stop their activity. Instead, the US government decided to do exactly the opposite. At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session convened to discuss the issue, Iran was condemnedIn addition to this, just under two weeks later, the United States decided Approve a $20 billion arms package for Israel.
Israeli Terrorism
There is no doubt that the act of sabotage carried out on Tuesday was carried out using terrorist tactics and it is important to analyse its objectives. While all the precise details of how Israel managed to detonate hundreds of pagers remain hidden, the impacts are crystal clear and we have enough information to make a judgement.
Firstly, the fact that this has happened all over Lebanon and that its victims have not been limited to Hezbollah bases has left a lingering sense of anxiety among the public. We cannot help but ask the question: if the Israelis can blow up pagers, can they also blow up phones, laptops and other devices? How many other plans of this nature do they have up their sleeves? This also affects Hezbollah itself, because there has been a clear breach of the group's security at one level or another, which has directly led to a temporary problem with the means of communication used by the group's military personnel.
According to the information we have so far, it appears that Israeli intelligence agents managed to rig a batch of pagers with small amounts of highly explosive material. While the scale is unique in history, this tactic is nothing new. In fact, in 1996, the Mossad murdered A leader of Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades named Yahya Ayyash placed explosive material inside his phone and detonated it remotely. In the 1980s, the Israelis even ran a group called Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) To carry out acts of terrorism by posing as a Christian fascist organization, one of its operations attempted to assassinate the former US ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean.
If this action was carried out as a means of disrupting Hezbollah’s communications, before Israel launched a larger-scale military operation, then it would have made sense as a tactic that would at some level degrade the group’s capabilities and force it to find alternative means of giving orders to certain cadres. However, this was not what happened, giving the Lebanese group time to recover from this blow and therefore needs to be seen in a different context, one of scoring points.
This now puts Lebanese Hezbollah in a difficult position. The group must prepare some sort of response to this attack, one that is designed to deter the Israelis from carrying out similar attacks in the future. However, Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that while his party is prepared for war, it is only interested in continuing to maintain a front of support for Palestinian groups fighting Israel from Gaza.
Since October 8, Hezbollah has carried out thousands of targeted attacks against Israeli military installations, mainly against surveillance, air defense and espionage equipment, but also against army personnel. In addition, the Lebanese armed group has also targeted specific populated areas located along the border region with rocket bombardments, forcing some 100,000 Israelis to flee.
On the other hand, approximately 110,000 Lebanese Israeli attacks have forced many civilians to flee their homes in southern Lebanon, which have been far more devastating to the country's civilian infrastructure than Hezbollah's have been to Israel's. Indeed, while Hezbollah's attacks have only caused the deaths of a handful of Israeli civilians, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed nearly 200 civilians. That said, there is no denying the success of Hezbollah's operations in conducting a war of attrition that is taxing Israel psychologically, militarily, and economically.
What's next?
Israel has carried out this operation in an attempt to score points against Hezbollah, primarily in the propaganda war, and the alternative objective is to drag the group into starting a shooting war. The Israelis do not want to be seen as the ones starting the war against Lebanon, both because they seek the support of the entire West and because they know that the conflict will end in a stalemate at best.
If Hezbollah does not mount a major defensive operation, it will signal weakness to the Israelis and will likely encourage them to continue carrying out similar offensive operations across Lebanon. On the other hand, if Hezbollah's response is too harsh, it may give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the perfect excuse to launch the war he has been threatening to wage for months.
This moment demands that Hezbollah step forward and take military risks, at a time when it now has a popular mandate inside Lebanon to respond in self-defense. It is clear that the Lebanese group’s strategy has been to continue its daily operations in support of the Gaza Strip, and Israel is determined to end this, so it is now attempting to transform the nature of the war and expand it outwards. Sadly, because the United States is providing full and unconditional support to the Israeli government as it expands the war, we are no longer facing a war limited to Gaza. Unless a ceasefire agreement is signed with Hamas soon, it seems inevitable that we are headed towards a war between Lebanon and Israel that will affect the entire region.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
