Netanyahu’s office confirms Israel was behind devastating pager attacks on Hezbollah
Spokesman says PM personally approved operation; Netanyahu reportedly told cabinet he okayed attack despite ‘opposition’ from senior defense officials
A spokesperson for Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed to media outlets on Monday for the first time that Israel was behind a string of devastating attacks on Hezbollah communications devices in September.
During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu reportedly boasted that Israel was behind the attacks, but while the Jewish state was widely believed to have been responsible, there had been no official confirmation from the government or military until spokesman Omer Dostri’s statement on Monday.
On September 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon.
The coordinated attack dealt a deadly blow to the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group, and kicked off an escalation that continued with the assassination of almost all of Hezbollah’s leadership, including Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, and a limited Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said the incident was the “biggest security breach” for the group in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, Reuters witnesses saw, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation. In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponized walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400.
The tolls did not differentiate between civilians and members of the terror group, and among the wounded was Tehran’s ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani. A Hezbollah official told Reuters a week later that the attacks put 1,500 of the group’s fighters out of commission due to their injuries, with many having been blinded or had their hands blown off.
In the aftermath, various media outlets reported that the attack was a highly sophisticated Israeli intelligence operation years in the making in which Hezbollah was fooled into purchasing the compromised devices.
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