Description
While such an operation would have been difficult to execute, it isn’t beyond the capabilities of a country like Israel. “Israel is obviously still the master of intelligence in the region,” Andreas Krieg, an associate professor for security studies at King’s College London, tells TIME, noting that “it has a network of intelligence and information collection that is unparalleled.”But experts say that all obvious signs point to Israeli involvement. “No one else is benefiting from it, but Israel, in terms of paralyzing Hezbollah,” says Krieg, noting that the militant group has been the most strategic threat to Israel for at least the past three decades. “There are loads of people who don’t like Hezbollah in the region, including Arab countries,” he adds, “but none of them have the capability to actually do something as sophisticated as this.”
While some observers fear that the attack could have been initiated as a prelude to a wider Israeli military incursion in Lebanon, Krieg says such an escalation would be in neither party’s interests, recent comments from the Israeli defense minister notwithstanding. “This paralysis of [Hezbollah] being unable to communicate effectively with one another is certainly something that could be a preparation, a first step, of such an operation,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s likely.”
“Hezbollah is obviously the fighting wing, but Hezbollah is [also] a political party, it’s a charity organization, it’s a civil societal movement as well,” says Krieg. “And so this pager system would have been distributed among civilians as well—people who are not fighters, who are not contributing to the war effort, and they were targeted as well.
| Period | 18 Sept 2024 |
|---|---|
| Held at | TIME, United States |
Keywords
- Israel
- Hezbollah