Israel degrades Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in spectacular pager explosion operation: Experts
JERUSALEM – The Jewish state’s James Bond-style alleged hack attack on Tuesday that caused explosions of handheld pagers carried by thousands of members of the U.S.-designated terrorist movement Hezbollah was a devastating setback for the Lebanon-based organization.\n\nFox News Digital spoke to leading U.S. and Israeli experts about the setback for the Iranian regime proxy.\n\nAccording to a Reuters report, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, planted explosives inside of 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday\\'s detonations that killed nine people, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.\n\nISRAEL WAS BEHIND LEBANON PAGER ATTACK TARGETING HEZBOLLAH, SENIOR US OFFICIAL SAYS, AS NEW BLASTS REPORTED\n\nThe Iranian regime-backed Hezbollah organization switched from mobile phones to pagers to prevent Israeli interception of their communications. Hezbollah joined Hamas’ war against Israel a day after the Gaza-based terrorist movement invaded the Jewish state on Oct. 7.\n\nWalid Phares, a leading U.S. expert on Lebanon and Hezbollah, told Fox News Digital that the reported Israeli operation, "is certainly a strike against Hezbollah’s national security apparatus. We are talking about thousands and thousands of individuals who are at the heart of the security force of Hezbollah, who are, according to sources we know, in charge of manning many things. One is the missile force."\n\nHezbollah is estimated to have over 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel. The de facto ruler of Lebanon, Hezbollah, has amassed new sophisticated missiles, rockets and drones since its 2006 war against Israel. Hezbollah has launched more than 7,500 missiles,
rockets, and drones into Israel since Oct. 8.\n\nOne Hezbollah official said the detonation of the pagers was the group\\'s "biggest security breach" since the Gaza conflict began.\n\nHEZBOLLAH\\'S NEIGHBORS: ISRAELI BORDER COMMUNITY UNDER CONSTANT ATTACK FROM TERROR GROUP\n\nPhares added that the "Israeli electronic bomb" operation also degraded many Hezbollah special forces, commandos, electronic forces, and internal security and intelligence apparatus members. He warned, however, that Hezbollah would eventually recover.\n\nPhares noted that Israel’s strike "weakened the image of Hezbollah within the Lebanese population." He said the psychological benefits of the strike have showed that the Lebanese are now convinced that Hezbollah "can eventually be defeated" and its "grip on Lebanon" can be weakened.\n\nHe said the Israeli cyber strike could also encourage opposition among Sunnis, Druze and Christians to mobilize against the Shi’ite Hezbollah organization.\n\nISRAEL STRUCK BY LONG-RANGE MISSILE FROM YEMEN, 40 PROJECTILES FROM LEBANON IN EARLY MORNING ATTACKS\n\nAn Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman was tight-lipped when Fox News Digital approached him for a comment. Israel frequently retains a policy of deliberate ambiguity about high-profile attacks on its enemies. The Israeli government’s policy is to neither confirm nor deny spectacular assassinations or other covert operations. A senior U.S. official later confirmed that Israel was behind the attack, but Israel has yet to do so.\n\nThe alleged Mossad operation, with a trail running from Taiwan to Budapest, was an unprecedented Hezbollah security breach that saw thousands of
pagers explode across Lebanon, wounding some 2,500 people, including many of the group\\'s fighters and Iran\\'s envoy to Beirut.\n\nHezbollah said in a statement on Wednesday that "the resistance will continue today, like any other day, its operations to support Gaza, its people and its resistance, which is a separate path from the harsh punishment that the criminal enemy (Israel) should await in response to Tuesday\\'s massacre."\n\nJonathan Conricus, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that "Beyond shock and humiliation, the immediate impact on Hezbollah is not yet clear, neither are the Iranian terror proxy’s intentions to retaliate. While the pager attack was a brilliant tactical success unlike anything previously accomplished against a terror organization during combat, the strategic benefits of this tremendous move are limited, if not supplemented with swift Israeli action against Hezbollah as it reels from the shock of impact."\n\nConricus, a former IDF spokesman, continued. "It seems that this action was more aimed at softening Hezbollah to agree to a war-avoiding diplomatic solution, and less as a preamble of an Israeli offensive. Israel’s main focus remains to facilitate the safe return home of almost one hundred thousand Israelis displaced by Hezbollah attacks for over 11 months. If the pager operation brings this about, then it will have been worth the risk. If not, it will be added to a long list of Israeli tactical successes that were not complemented by strategic thought and action."\n\nHEZBOLLAH RELIES ON \\'SOPHISTICATED\\' TUNNEL SYSTEM BACKED BY IRAN, NORTH KOREA IN FIGHT
