The Journal. - Exploding Pagers and the Risk of a Spreading War

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of pagers issued to Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon exploded at the same time, killing 12 people and injuring more than 2,800. The next day, walkie-talkies detonated in a similar way. Michael Amon reports on one of Israel’s most ambitious covert operations and what the attacks could mean for a broader war. Further Listening: -The Brutal Calculation of Hamas’s Leader  -Why Israel and Hamas Could Be Headed Into a Forever War  Further Reading: -How a Covert Attack Against Hezbollah Unfolded Across Lebanon’s Streets and Malls  -Israel Scored a Stunning Blow Against Hezbollah. Its Path to Victory Is Less Clear.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Across Lebanon on Tuesday afternoon, life was humming along. It's a normal, late summer, sunny, beautiful day in Lebanon. People were just on the street, walking down the street. That's our colleague Michael Amon. People were sitting in their cars at traffic lights. Anything you can think of in normal everyday life, someone would be looking at a piece of fruit in a grocery store.

Then, around 3.30, thousands of electronic pagers started to ping. There was a beep, beep, beep, and then boom. Things just started blowing up. One by one, all at the same time, boom. Just explosions in Beirut, in southern Lebanon, in the Beqa Valley. Thousands of pagers exploded all over the country, all at the same time. Blast after blast after blast, as part of an apparent attack. And it turns out that these were all Hezbollah pagers that were being carried by Hezbollah members

or people close to them, including families and some children who were caught in these explosions. And it didn't end on Tuesday. It didn't. Now, fast forward until Wednesday, there were even more explosions, except this time it's walkie-talkies held by Hezbollah members. And these were very large explosions. They were actually more deadly and caused more destruction. It just makes people wonder there, will it ever end? These devices blew up in people's hands, destroyed hips and eyes.

One explosion happened at a funeral. The attacks left hospitals overwhelmed. More than 3,000 people were wounded and at least 37 people were dead. How significant is this coordinated attack? It is probably the most catastrophic blow to Hezbollah in its 40-year history. They blamed it on Israel, and Israel's not taking credit, but they haven't denied it either, and it represents for Israel

possibly the most audacious feat of intelligence and military planning in its 75-year history. What's the burning question you have now? The burning question I have is, what is next? What was the strategic value of this attack? Assuming it was Israel, which I think the world is assuming it was Israel, what do they get out of this? Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power.

I'm Kate Leinbach. It's Thursday, September 19th. Coming up on the show, the simultaneous explosions of thousands of devices in Lebanon and the rising risk of a full-scale war in the Middle East. I'm going back to university for zero dollar delivery fee, up to five percent off orders and five percent Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. It's a new day. How can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points?

Earn points on everyday purchases. Use them for that long-awaited vacation. Points never expire, so use them how you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express. On eligible cards, terms apply. Learn more at mx.ca. Hezbollah is a decades-old militant group that has tens of thousands of members. It's backed by Iran, is an ally of Hamas,

and it opposes the existence of the state of Israel. The U.S. has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization. And this week's attacks on the group brought a question to mind. Why do so many members of Hezbollah use low-tech communication devices like Pagers and walkie talkies? Yeah, it's a good question. After the Gaza war started, Hezbollah began using cell phones and electronic communications much, much less for fear of Israel's intelligence capabilities.

A lot of times when Israel is able to strike and kill a militant or kill a commander, you know, it's because that person used a cell phone. It's because they sent a text message. They did it on a network that Israel had compromised. So Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, several months ago, essentially told all Hezbollah members don't use cell phones anymore. So the group ordered more than 5,000 new pagers

to distribute among its members. But unbeknownst to Hezbollah at the time, those pagers were laced with explosive material. What do we know about these pagers that they were using? They're branded by a company in Taiwan. That company is called Gold Apollo. That company says they actually didn't manufacture them, that they licensed them to another company in Hungary,

which from all appearances, doesn't look like a very large company. It's been speculated that it's a front. So exactly where they were manufactured, exactly where they came from is still unknown. What has that Hungarian company said? Very little. There is a person who answers the phone and they don't appear to know anything about it. Hungary's prime minister said the

pagers used in the attacks were never in Hungary. And do we know when or where these pagers were turned into little explosive devices? We don't know, but it's very difficult to transport explosives across international borders, so experts are best guesses that this was planted very close to the planet delivery to Hezbollah. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for the attack. Israel has not claimed responsibility, but it also has not denied the accusations. If Israel was behind these attacks, does that imply that Israel had intel from inside Hezbollah? It implies that they have some kind of significant human intelligence,

meaning like they have spies within Hezbollah who are giving them information and facilitating this. There is a weak link within Hezbollah. The scope of the attacks was far-reaching. The explosions injured hundreds of operatives and outed members and people affiliated with Hezbollah. Among those injured was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. Iran financially supports Hezbollah. Among those injured was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. Iran financially supports Hezbollah. How do we know that the people carrying the pagers were actually linked to Hezbollah?

There are many ways. I mean, Hezbollah has essentially said they were, and Hezbollah has gone to great lengths to stop Lebanese people from distributing photos and video of it because they're afraid of their operatives being exposed. I mean this is another thing that you know is extraordinary about this. It's really not a you know a public-facing organization. Its leader Hassan Nasrallah has really not been out in public very much you know if at all. The leadership is very cloistered.

Hezbollah members themselves kind of live double lives. So you know, they can appear like anyone else. They could be a doctor or, you know, anything. And so for them to be exposed in a society like Lebanon, in which it's a very divided society and which Hezbollah is not always popular. It's very significant for them. There were also a lot of civilian casualties, including two children who died. Where does this leave Hezbollah? In a very dark place.

It's an organization that has been infiltrated. It's shown itself unable to protect its rank and file. What about its ability to communicate with its members now? I don't know how they're going to communicate with each other because they're not using cell phones. Their beeper system is no longer operable and their walkie talkies. I mean, anything they use, they would have to be suspicious of. What does it mean psychologically for Hezbollah? It's catastrophic psychologically for them to not be able to communicate with your members,

not be able to protect your members, to just be put on the back foot like this. In a televised address today, thousands of pages were targeted by the Israeli enemy and detonated at the same time. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said the attacks had dealt the group a, quote, hard and severe blow. He also said the attacks were, quote, a declaration of war and vowed retribution. While he spoke, a pair of sonic booms rang out across Beirut. Lebanon's official news agency said they were Israeli warplanes, part of a wave of airstrikes

Israel launched in Lebanon today. Now, with Hezbollah on its back foot, what's Israel's plan? That's next. Since the October 7 attacks that sparked the war in Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah have been firing rockets at each other across Israel's northern border. That's caused thousands of Lebanese residents to flee north and thousands of Israeli residents to go south. The north of Israel has really emptied out because there's been so much fighting in between. And that has essentially shrunk the size of the state of Israel. It has

made it so that there are parts of the state of Israel where Jews cannot live. And for the Jewish state, that's intolerable. Then in July, a rocket attack hit a neighborhood soccer field inside Israel, killing 12 children. Israel blamed Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied involvement. Israel blamed Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied involvement. That was a moment in which we thought, okay, this is going from daily tit for tats to something that would move us up the ladder of escalation into war. Because after that, Israel's response was to kill the most senior military Hezbollah commander in a precision strike in Beirut. Israel has carried out an airstrike on the Lebanese capital Beirut. Israel said it had killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in a single strike in Beirut.

There is a sort of level of violence that both sides know that they can get away with without it going into full scare war. And they've been more or less doing that dance for almost a year. So these attacks this week in Lebanon of the pagers and the walkie talkies, what do we know about why now? That's a question we're reporting out. There has been reports that we are trying to confirm that Israel had its hand forced, that its operation was exposed and it was kind of a use it or lose it moment.

And they may have deployed this pager and walkie talkie attack before they wanted to. While Israel hasn't taken responsibility for the attack, Israel's top general said, quote, we have many capabilities that we haven't yet activated. And these attacks have stoked calls in Israel to launch a ground invasion into Lebanon while Hezbollah is weakened. There has been a lot of criticism in the Israeli press of the Israeli government for like not having invaded right after this.

The idea was that this attack has sort of softened Hezbollah up. So you have significant numbers of Hezbollah fighters who would not be able to participate in a war right away. And so there's this idea that, well, maybe they're just improvising now that this has been exposed. But Michael says if Israel moves ahead with an all-out war with Hezbollah, it could come with geopolitical consequences.

Right now, the US stands with Israel, but there's not a lot of other countries standing with Israel, so it risks more diplomatic isolation. And really, that's all happening just in the last year since the Gaza war started, because before all that, Israel is really diplomatically on the upswing with relations with Arab neighbors. We're just looking at a completely different Israel on the global stage, and war in Lebanon would just be more problems for them diplomatically around the world. The government of Lebanon condemned this week's attacks, as did Hezbollah's financial backer, Iran.

And today, Hezbollah said it launched counterattacks in northern Israel. It makes the region that much more tense. We just went through, you know, 11 months of war in Gaza, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed at the start of it and then 40,000 Palestinians have been killed after that. And that has been a year of war that has just torn the region apart. You've seen a lot, I mean, chronicling these horrific past few months. But this attack in Lebanon was so shocking. Yeah. I've never seen anything like it.

I've never, I mean, and it's not just me. I mean, people with more experience than I have say they've never seen anything like it. It's a game changer in that conflict. like it. It's a game changer in that conflict. What does this moment say to you about where Israel is right now? What it says to me is that Israel is ready for war. And that it may not happen, but like this is a sign that Israel is ready for war and is going to go to war. And it is a signal to Hezbollah that it has to be prepared for war too. I was talking with, on the record, with an Israeli official,

and we thought we were going to talk about the economy for half an hour, instead we just talked about geopolitics and how Israel is ready for war. It is a daily headline in Israeli newspapers and on the 10 o'clock news there about readiness for war in the north. And I think that doesn't always filter back out into the rest of the world, that this is a country that's basically turning its attention

to the north and is ready for a new phase of this conflict. That's all for today, Thursday, September 19th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting for this episode by Omar Abdel-Bakki, Adam Shamseddin, Rory Jones, Michael Gordon, Stephen Kalin, Shane D. Rice, and Summer Said. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.