How Israel was able to hurt thousands of people with a hack

INTERNATIONAL – The mystery is gradually being lifted over the attack on Hezbollah. While the death toll from the spectacular simultaneous explosion of the pagers of hundreds of Hezbollah members continues to climb, the first elements are beginning to emerge on the origin of this attack, still attributed by Hezbollah to Israel.

On Tuesday, September 17, a report stated that nine people were dead and nearly 2,800 injured in several Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. The Lebanese movement quickly indicated that it had opened an investigation into the origin of these simultaneous explosions.

At this time, the Hebrew state has not yet expressed itself on the subject, but its main ally, the United States, claims not to be “not involved.” “The United States was not aware of this incident in advance, and at this point we are gathering information “, simply reacted the spokesperson for the American State Department, Matthew Miller.

The use of these famous pagers, radio messaging systems, had been imposed by the movement because of the risk of hacking of Hezbollah members on mobile phones. But according to a Source close to Hezbollah to AFP, “ The beepers that exploded were from a shipment of a thousand devices recently imported by Hezbollah.which appear to have been “ hacked at the Source ». Enough to raise the hypothesis of an operation prepared in advance.

The logistic infiltration trail

“According to the video recordings (…), a small plastic explosive was certainly hidden next to the battery (of the pagers) for remote triggering by sending a message”estimates Charles Lister, an expert at the Middle East Institute (MEI) on the social network X this Tuesday evening. Which means for him that “ Mossad (Israeli foreign secret service, in charge of special operations) infiltrated the supply chain”.

Israeli agents have probably “ infiltrated the production process and added an explosive component and a remotely activated detonator to the beepers, without arousing suspicion”adds military analyst Elijah Magnier, describing “ “A major security flaw in Hezbollah protocols”.

“Either by posing as a supplier or by injecting the tampered equipment directly into Hezbollah’s supply chain via its vulnerabilities (transport trucks, merchant ships), they managed to spread the beepers within the organization.”says Mike DiMino, security expert and former CIA analyst.

Another hypothesis, according to Riad Kahwaji, a security analyst based in Dubai: “Israel controls a large part of the world’s electronics industry and, without a doubt, one of the factories it owns manufactured and shipped these explosive devices that exploded today.”.

Other possibilities are also mentioned, such as remote overheating of electronic components, even if this theory still seems questionable due to the violence of the explosions, which can hardly be caused by a simple battery overheating.

Efficiency restored

Qualified as“Zionist terrorist aggression” by Hamas, which emphasizes that the attack made no distinction “between resistance fighters and civilians”this meticulous operation using tools that are largely out of fashion can already be seen as a success for the Israeli services. All the more so after having successfully carried out the attempted assassination of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, at the end of July in Tehran. According to the New York Timesa bomb had been hidden two months earlier in the building where Ismail Haniyeh lived.

Although Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, it is nevertheless a ” intelligence work at the peak of its art”says Mike DiMino. For him, “An operation of this magnitude takes months, if not years, to organize properly”. Near the Parisianformer officer Guillaume Ancel also underlines the fact that with so much preparation necessary, “If the organization behind this had wanted to kill, not injure, they could have done so. So this is clearly a humiliation.”

Judged ” radicale” by former Israeli intelligence agent Avi Melamed, the explosion of the beepers would thus give a strategic advantage to Israel, by increasing ” most likely the stress and embarrassment of the movement’s leaders” Lebanese. “If you’re planning a ground incursion into Lebanon to push Hezbollah north (…) that’s exactly the kind of chaos you’d be sowing upstream.”concludes Mike DiMino.

Following this logic, this operation would allow the Israeli intelligence services to restore their image. It must be said that the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 had clearly taken Israel and its intelligence services by surprise. However, before this date, the Mossad had one of the best reputations in the world in the intelligence community.

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