Pager Bomb ‘Psychological Warfare’ Signals That Netanyahu Wants ‘Major War’, Lebanese Observer Fears
18:03 GMT 19.09.2024 (Updated: 10:41 GMT 20.09.2024)
© AP Photo / Abir Sultan
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Dozens of people were killed and nearly 3,500 injured in a series of coordinated explosions of pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices Tuesday and Wednesday targeting Lebanese political and militia movement Hezbollah. Sputnik asked a Beirut-based scholar what exactly happened, and what happens next.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has commented on the series of deadly blasts that rocked Lebanon earlier in the week, characterizing them as an Israel “act of terror, a massacre, a genocide,” and a “declaration of war” that would be met with “just punishment.”
“We know the enemy has technological superiority, especially supported by the US and the West. We bet on Holy War, attrition. We’ve won many times before,” Nasrallah said in a televised address on Thursday, assuring that the enemy tried “to destroy Hezbollah’s command structure and hurt its leaders and cause chaos in our organization” but failed.
Linking the suspected Israeli attack to Hezbollah’s ironclad support for Gaza (which has manifested in a months-long campaign of cross-border attacks, including the targeting IDF troops and infrastructure), Nasrallah assured that “the Lebanese front will not stop until Israeli aggression in Gaza ends.”
Israelis will “not be able to return” to their homes in northern Israel so long as the aggression in Gaza continues, Nasrallah said, responding to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s X post comments from a day earlier that Tel Aviv would “return the residents of the north to their safe homes.”
Israeli jets flew over southern Lebanon, Beqaa Valley and Beirut Thursday while Nasrallah gave his speech, causing loud, explosion-like sounds as they broke the sound barrier.
Not counting a Netanyahu advisor who dropped hints about Israeli responsibility for carnage, Israeli officials have not publicly denied nor confirmed involvement, leaving it to Israeli and US media to report the intimate details of planning behind the attacks, citing anonymous officials.
On the eve of the violence, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin privately expressed concerns that Israel might launch a ground invasion into southern Lebanon. On Thursday, in a possible bid to cool tensions, sources told the Jerusalem Post that the IDF has no plans for any major new operations, much less a ground invasion.
19 September, 08:59 GMT
‘Psychological Warfare’
“The damage is heavy. We’re not just talking about material damage,” Yeghia Tashjian, a Beirut-based political analyst and researcher, regional and international affairs cluster coordinator at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut told Sputnik, comparing the chaos which followed Tuesday’s coordinated explosions to the atmosphere following the August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion.
The pager attacks constituted “psychological terror and psychological warfare that Israel is inflicting on the Lebanese people,” Tashjian emphasized.
“There were a lot of injuries, ambulances, people with blood injuries. There were also kids – and this is very important, because sometimes we are seeing in the media as if the targets were only Hezbollah fighters and so forth. No, there were kids also. I think two or three kids have been martyred so far,” the observer said, noting that the attack took place in the late afternoon, when students were returning from schools, and homes and shops were packed.
Tuesday and Wednesday’s back-to-back electronic device attacks “were not limited to the capital” nor limited to Hezbollah or its supporters, but constituted “an attack on the whole Lebanese people” affecting people across the country, Tashjian stressed.
19 September, 09:38 GMT
Prelude to Invasion?
“My assumption is that given the history of cyber terror attacks in the world, usually countries, when they are going to attack or invade another country, they start with cybersecurity attacks in order to inflict psychological damage, infrastructural damage, and then they engage with conventional wars,” the observer warned.
The attempted escalation is only logical for Netanyahu, who faces criminal charges if the war that started in Gaza were ever stopped, Tashjian said. “In order to remain in power, he has to continue and prolong this war because he is concerned with prosecution – there are judicial cases against him. Israeli society is not actually concerned with the war. They are asking for the release of hostages and negotiations with Hamas. So there is a lot of pressure.”
3 September, 04:11 GMT
Will Hezbollah Bite the Bait?
Characterizing this week’s attacks as another attempt by Tel Aviv to bait Hezbollah into a “major war,” Tashjian said he expects the militia to respond in a manner consistent with its policy of “calculated deterrence,” since a large-scale war with Israel threatening to escalate into a regional war is not Lebanon’s interests.
As for an Israeli escalation, the observer says that while the cabinet and Netanyahu’s security inner circle may seek to “go forward” and kick off a ground attack, “the timing is not clear,” and could depend “on pressure from the international community and from the great powers – the US, China, Russia, the European Union and also some regional actors,” who should accordingly “do their best to at least coordinate in this issue” to try to reach a ceasefire to prevent an escalation.
“If a huge escalation [takes place] and Israel takes a decision to engage in a ground invasion, we may witness another form of regional war. This would be a very severe conventional war,” expanding not just through south Lebanon, but far off theaters in Yemen and Iraq, affecting trade and energy security, and even the upcoming US presidential elections. “And of course, there would be more casualties. Infrastructure will be destroyed in both countries. This is not something that some international actors want,” Tashjian believes.
“This is not in the interest especially of the Persian Gulf countries…Iran also doesn’t want a war, to be very fair. This is clear by Iran’s calculated and measured response against Israel. If Iran wanted a regional war, it could have escalated and could have directly hit Israel weeks ago. But it’s trying to play a limited, calculated deterrence game against Israel,” the observer stressed, commenting on Tehran’s nearly year-long effort to put pressure on Tel Aviv and its allies through the Axis of Resistance without being sucked into a conflict which would almost inevitably involve the US.
