By: Yaakov Lapin and Tal Beeri
On Tuesday, September 17th, at around 3:30 PM, a wave of explosions occurred within pagers used by Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon and Syria. This significant and widespread event in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, assuming that Israel is indeed involved in this event, severely impacted Hezbollah’s operational, intelligence functions and landed a severe cognitive blow on the organization.
The cognitive aspect may have the most far-reaching effects, potentially outweighing the direct harm to the many injured Hezbollah operatives. In our view, Hezbollah will now label every technological platform it uses as ‘suspect.’ They will have to rethink their continued usage until Hezbollah’s security unit, led by Az Al-Din, clears them.
The cognitive impact severely disrupts operations. Hezbollah’s military, which now heavily relies on various technological platforms, sees this advantage turn into a liability.
According to current reports, over 10 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in Lebanon, and between 3,000 to 4,000 have been injured, hundreds critically. Among the injured are the sons of high-ranking Hezbollah officials. The operatives were hit in South Lebanon, Beirut, Dahiya, the Bekaa Valley, and Syria: Damascus, Sayyida Zainab, Quneitra, Aleppo, and Idlib. They were evacuated to dozens of hospitals across Lebanon and Syria.
The affected regions highlight Hezbollah’s key operational areas in both Lebanon and Syria.
Among the injured was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, a senior military figure in the Revolutionary Guards who is more than just a diplomat. According to reports, he was injured in both eyes. Amani possessed a Hezbollah pager since he is a central figure in coordinating activities with Hezbollah. This serves as the clearest evidence of the close relationship between Iran and Hezbollah and the dual role played by Iranian diplomats who double up as security figures.
Lebanese government officials, including ministers of health, media, and interior, have directly blamed Israel for these explosions.
International media reports present two main theories on how the devices exploded:
Theory 1 hold that the explosions resulted from the devices’ batteries overheating. Malicious software may have overloaded the lithium batteries, causing them to explode. Additionally, the central server of the communication system may have been hacked, with software installed to increase the load and eventually cause the batteries to explode.
The second theory holds that the devices contained pre-installed explosives that were inserted in the supply chain before being distributed to Hezbollah operatives. According to reports, the devices originated from Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, and more than 3,000 units were delivered to Hezbollah. The pagers reportedly had up to 50 grams of explosives and a remote activation switch. The devices received a message just before exploding, triggering the explosives.
This marks a historic event in operational capabilities, demonstrating the new ability to harm thousands of enemy operatives without firing a single bullet or dropping a single bomb.
Hezbollah quickly responded to the events, issuing several statements culminating in directly blaming Israel. It affirmed that it would continue hostile actions against Israel and maintained the linkage it makes between fighting in Lebanon and in Gaza. It seems that Hezbollah is still trying to understand what happened, assessing the damage, and has not yet formulated a response policy.
Following the explosions, Hezbollah ordered its operatives to immediately discard their pagers and communication devices, fearing further explosions. This order, swiftly disseminated, highlights the panic and urgency the event caused within Hezbollah, which, in its view and until proven otherwise, currently lacks internal, secure communication.
Tactical and Strategic Implications of the Explosions
If Israel is responsible, the first question arising from the attack is whether this was a planned and timed action meant to serve as a warning or demonstration of Israel’s capabilities, or whether it is the opening blow of a full-scale war with Hezbollah.
Faisal al-Qassem, a Syrian-Druze journalist with millions of followers and a program on Al Jazeera, compared the pager attack to the Israeli Air Force’s opening strike on the Egyptian Air Force during the 1967 Six-Day War. However, it appears there are no follow-up actions at this stage, suggesting this is not an opening blow. Moreover, some publications suggest the event occurred due to an operational necessity rather than premeditated timing and planning.
Either way, the event causes significant disruption to Hezbollah’s operational continuity and undermines Hezbollah’s operational capacity to communicate securely with its personnel. We assess that Hezbollah’s decision-making process and organizational conduct will be impacted, though at the local tactical level, Hezbollah will try to continue firing at northern Israel and send the message to its base that “business as usual.” Indeed, Hezbollah’s fire into northern Israel has continued.
Despite the above, in our estimation, if Hezbollah decides, it will be able to launch an extensive attack on Israel in the immediate time frame.
It is possible, for legitimacy purposes, particularly with the U.S. and globally, that Israel will use this event to shift the ‘opening dilemma’ regarding a full-scale war onto Hezbollah. Israel may be counting on Hezbollah’s response to provide the justification needed to launch an operation aimed at striking Hezbollah’s infrastructure near Israel’s border and returning northern Israel’s residents to their homes. Given the Iranian ambassador was directly injured in the attack, the question also arises as to whether there will be an Iranian response.
Simultaneously, Hezbollah continues its attempts to carry out attacks on Israeli soil by activating Palestinian terror infrastructure under its direction. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced on Tuesday, just hours before the explosions, that it thwarted an attack against a former senior Israeli security official using a Claymore – type explosive device that was set to be carried out in the coming days. The infrastructure behind the plot is the same that carried out the attempted attack in Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv in September 2023, according to the Shin Bet statement.
“The device had a remote activation mechanism, camera-based and cellular, for operation from Lebanon by Hezbollah. Operational readiness and the forces’ activity thwarted the attack at the final stages of execution. The involved [targeted] individual has been updated by security personnel and briefed accordingly… It should be noted that the device was similar in characteristics to the Claymore device activated by Hezbollah on September 15, 2023, at Yarkon Park, intended to target a senior Israeli official. The defense establishment assesses that the Hezbollah operatives involved in the current event were behind the September 2023 attack as well. The infrastructure has been monitored for a long time.”
Now, attention turns to Iran and Hezbollah’s response to the pager blasts. The intensity and timing of Hezbollah’s response, in our estimation, will signal Iran and Hezbollah’s intentions regarding the onset of a full-scale war with Israel. We anticipate this war will likely occur in the near future in any case. We can track and observe Hezbollah’s narrative campaign through its media outlets. The lead headline of Hezbollah’s central newspaper, Al-Akhbar, the morning after (September 18), reads “Lawless Killing.” This may hint at Hezbollah’s response, which could break “equations and conventions.”
