The timing of last week's pager blasts was not connected to any fears by "whoever caused" them that the terror plot had been discovered by Hezbollah, sources told the Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
The report challenges earlier reports citing US officials suggesting that Israel may have decided to move forward with the pager attack out of fears that the operation may have been uncovered by Hezbollah. "It was a use it or lose it moment," one anonymous US official told Axios on Wednesday.
The sources further indicated that the attack was made possible by tinkering with devices' lithium batteries, and that the tactics involved 'have existed for a long time' (although nothing of a comparable scale was ever attempted).
The Israeli newspaper found it "noteworthy" that in the days leading up to the mass pager explosions, "both [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made public statements about elevating the push to return Israel's northern residents to their homes to become one of the primary missions of the current war."
US officials told US media on Saturday that while the Biden White House is "extremely concerned" about the escalating violence on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Washington "agrees" with Tel Aviv's rationale of inflicting violence for the goal of trying to "pressure" Hezbollah into a diplomatic deal.
The Jerusalem Post further pointed out in its report that "for the weeks and days leading up to last week, Israel was shifting its ground and air forces heavily toward the northern border after having focused most of them on Gaza since October 7, 2023." In this light, the pager and other electronic device attacks may have constituted a preemptive Israeli strike ahead of a broader military campaign.
The pager terror has sparked a dramatic escalation of cross border missile, rocket and artillery attacks between the IDF and Hezbollah in recent days. On Sunday, the Lebanese Shia militia group announced that its campaign against Israel had entered a "new phase."