Netanyahu says he gave green light to pager attack

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged for the first time on Sunday that he had given the green light to the pager attack against Lebanese Hezbollah in September, his spokesperson, Omer Dostri, told AFP.

Speaking at the weekly Council of Ministers, he said he had authorized this operation which had not previously been claimed.

Booby-trapped transmission devices (beepers, walkie-talkies) used by members of Hezbollah were exploded on September 17 and 18 in the southern suburbs of Beirut as well as in the south and east of Lebanon, strongholds of the Islamist Hezbollah movement. These explosions left 39 dead and nearly 3,000 injured, according to the Lebanese authorities.

If this spectacular operation bore the mark of Mossad, the powerful Israeli foreign intelligence service, Israel has never openly claimed responsibility for it or commented on it.

In support of Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel on October 8, 2023, firing daily into Israeli territory from southern Lebanon.

These hostilities degenerated into open war on September 23 with a campaign of intense Israeli strikes, mainly against the strongholds of the Lebanese movement. On September 30, the Israeli army launched a ground offensive in Lebanon.

More than 2,700 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, the majority civilians, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

At least 23 people, including seven children, were killed Sunday in an Israeli strike on a town north of Beirut, the Health Ministry announced.

Israel, in open war since September 23 against Hezbollah, has intensified its strikes in recent days against the strongholds of the Lebanese movement, particularly in the southern suburbs of Beirut and southern Lebanon. “The raid by the Israeli enemy targeting Aalmat in the Jbeil region left 23 dead, including seven children, and six injured,” the ministry said, adding that the toll was likely to rise further, with “human remains” having been removed from the rubble.

AFP images showed rescuers searching with their bare hands the rubble of a completely razed house, while an excavator removed the blocks of stone in a Shiite locality located in the predominantly Christian mountain, around thirty kilometers from Beirut.

The Israeli army has repeatedly targeted residential buildings which, according to Lebanese media, sometimes house people linked to Hezbollah among the displaced.

Present at the scene of the strike, Hezbollah MP in the region, Raed Berro, denied that members of his group were in the building. Important figures in the movement “are generally on the front line… not in the back,” he told AFP. “Under the rubble there are only children, old men and women,” he added.

The area was cordoned off by Lebanese security forces and members of Hezbollah, noted an AFP correspondent on site. Dozens of people piled their belongings into their cars and fled the village.

On the social network Facebook, Ali Haidar, originally from the village, wrote that the targeted house belonged to his grandfather and that it accommodated 35 displaced people from Baalbeck, relatives according to him, including “women and children”.

Israel also carried out a series of airstrikes on villages and towns in southern and eastern Lebanon, Hezbollah strongholds. Three rescue workers affiliated with Hezbollah were killed in an Israeli strike on their center in the town of Adloun, according to the Ministry of Health.

In addition to its campaign of intense strikes in Lebanon, the Israeli army has been carrying out a ground offensive in the south of the country since September 30.

Israel says it wants to neutralize Hezbollah in the border regions of southern Lebanon to allow the return home of 60,000 inhabitants of the north of its territory displaced by the shooting of the Lebanese Islamist movement which has lasted since October 2023.