Israel may not have admitted it, but the extraordinary, coordinated attack on Hezbollah, which blew up thousands of ‘pagers’ used by members of the Lebanese group, is almost certainly a Mossad operation. Israel’s intelligence agency has been involved in assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders for decades, but if involvement is confirmed, it represents a significant escalation, according to Dan Sabbagh, security and defense editor at The Guardian, in his analysis of the latest developments in the Middle East.
Reports are still coming in, but with at least nine dead and around 3.000 injured in dozens, if not hundreds, of coordinated explosions, this episode demonstrates the ruthless and indiscriminate intent to target Hezbollah, the author believes, adding that ‘pagers’ were used in the attack as an alternative to mobile phones, which can be tracked and used to identify deadly projectiles on their commanders.
Hacking or sabotage?
It is unclear how the explosions were triggered and, while speculation about hacking is inevitable, they were most likely the result of sabotaged devices. Initial reports indicate that the ‘pagers’ that exploded were a new model produced by a company whose supply chain may have been compromised by the perpetrators of the attack.
Yossi Melman, co-author of Spies Against Armageddon and other books on Israeli intelligence, pointed out that the exploding ‘pagers’ “were recently delivered” and added:
“We know that Mossad is capable of penetrating and infiltrating Hezbollah from time to time.” However, he questioned the strategic wisdom of an attack in which a 10-year-old girl was killed.
“This increases the potential for escalating the border crisis into war,” Melman warned, asserting that it is “more of a sign of panic” because, although it shows an extraordinary ability to strike at the heart of Hezbollah, it was neither targeted nor would it change the broader strategic picture. “I don’t see any progress in this,” he concluded.
Assassinations of Hamas leaders orchestrated by Israel
A sabotaged mobile phone was used back in January 1996 to blow up Yahya Ayyash, then Hamas’s chief bomb-maker, in Gaza City. Ayyash, known as “The Engineer,” was considered responsible for introducing the strategy of carrying out suicide bombings on Israeli passenger buses – but his assassination prompted a new wave of bus bombings and did little to calm the crisis at the time.
Khaled Mashal, another Hamas leader, survived an assassination attempt in 1997. Mashal, then the political leader of Hamas, had poison injected into his ear in an operation approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while he was in Jordan. Mashal survived, and some of the responsible Israeli agents were arrested – forcing Jordan’s King Hussein to break the peace agreement and threaten to hang the conspirators if an antidote was not provided. A humiliated Israel was forced to comply.
Five hours after arriving in Dubai in February 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas leader responsible for procuring weapons, was killed in his hotel room by a team of 11 assassins who used fake European passports to cover their identities. Hamas accused Israel of being behind the plot, some aspects of which can be seen in CCTV footage released by the Dubai authorities. Some of the agents changed disguises during the deadly operation which, despite its elaborateness, was uncovered.
Since the beginning of Israel’s latest war with Hamas, there have been many more attempts to eliminate the leaders of the Palestinian militant group. Ismail Haniyeh, then the political leader of the group, was killed by a “short-range missile” in Tehran in August – prompting warnings from Iran that it would respond with direct military action against Israel.
Although Iran refrained from attacking, the war between Israel and Hamas is close to entering its second year, and tensions with Hezbollah in the north have probably never been higher, the author concludes, N1 writes.
E.Dz.
