r/neoliberal • u/Cook_0612 NATO • Oct 06 '24
News (Middle East) Mossad’s pager operation: Inside Israel’s penetration of Hezbollah
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/05/israel-mossad-hezbollah-pagers-nasrallah/33
u/Cook_0612 NATO Oct 06 '24
Very interesting stuff.
TEL AVIV — In the initial sales pitch to Hezbollah two years ago, the new line of Apollo pagers seemed precisely suited to the needs of a militia group with a sprawling network of fighters and a hard-earned reputation for paranoia.
The AR924 pager was slightly bulky but rugged, built to survive battlefield conditions. It boasted a waterproof Taiwanese design and an oversized battery that could operate for months without charging. Best of all, there was no risk that the pagers could ever be tracked by Israel’s intelligence services. Hezbollah’s leaders were so impressed they bought 5,000 of them and began handing them out to mid-level fighters and support personnel in February.
None of the users suspected they were wearing an ingeniously crafted Israeli bomb. And even after thousands of the devices exploded in Lebanon and Syria, few appreciated the pagers’ most sinister feature: a two-step de-encryption procedure that ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated.
As many as 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members — most of them rear-echelon figures — were killed or maimed, along with an unknown number of civilians, according to Israeli, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials, when Israel’s Mossad intelligence service triggered the devices remotely on Sept. 17.
As an act of spy craft, it is without parallel, one of the most successful and inventive penetrations of an enemy by an intelligence service in recent history. But key details of the operation — including how it was planned and carried out, and the controversy it engendered within Israel’s security establishment and among allies — are only now coming to light.
This account, including numerous new details about the operation, was pieced together from interviews with Israeli, Arab and U.S. security officials, politicians and diplomats briefed on the events, as well as Lebanese officials and people close to Hezbollah. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. They describe a years-long plan that originated at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv and ultimately involved a cast of operatives and unwitting accomplices in multiple countries. The Washington Post account reveals how the attack not only devastated
Hezbollah’s leadership ranks but also emboldened Israel to target and kill Hezbollah’s top leader, Hasan Nasrallah, raising the risk of a wider Middle East war.
Iran launched around 180 missiles against Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Hezbollah’s leadership and warned of harsher consequences if the conflict escalates.
“The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders,” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said during a Friday sermon in Tehran.
But in Israel, the strike convinced the country’s political leaders that Hezbollah could be put on the ropes, susceptible to a systematic dismantling using airstrikes and, eventually, a ground invasion. Yet while marveling at the plot’s success, some officials continue to worry about the broader ripples of the strike, in a conflict that continues to spiral.
One Israeli political official, referring to the pager plot, summed up the anxieties in a quip at a meeting with Mossad officials.
“We cannot make a strategic decision such as an escalation in Lebanon while counting on a toy,” the official said.
Designed by Mossad, assembled in Israel
The idea for the pager operation originated in 2022, according to the Israeli, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials familiar with the events. Parts of the plan began falling into place more than a year before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack that put the region on a path to war. It was a time of relative quiet on Israel’s war-scarred northern border with Lebanon.
Among the half dozen Iranian-backed militia groups with weapons aimed at Israel, Hezbollah is by far the strongest. Israeli officials had watched with increasing anxiety as the Lebanese group added new weapons to an arsenal already capable of striking Israeli cities with tens of thousands of precision-guided missiles.
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service responsible for combating foreign threats to the Jewish state, had worked for years to penetrate the group with electronic monitoring and human informants. Over time, Hezbollah leaders learned to worry about the group’s vulnerability to Israeli surveillance and hacking, fearing that even ordinary cellphones could be turned into Israeli-controlled eavesdropping and tracking devices.
Thus was born the idea of creating a kind of communications Trojan horse, the officials said. Hezbollah was looking for hack-proof electronic networks for relaying messages, and Mossad came up with a pair of ruses that would lead the militia group to purchase devices that seemed perfect for the job — equipment that Mossad designed and had assembled in Israel.
The first part of the plan, booby-trapped walkie-talkies, began being inserted into Lebanon by Mossad nearly a decade ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained oversized battery packs, a hidden explosive and a transmission system that gave Israel complete access to Hezbollah communications.
For nine years, the Israelis contented themselves with eavesdropping on Hezbollah, the officials said, while reserving the option to turn the walkie-talkies into bombs in a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a glitzy new product: a small pager equipped with a powerful explosive. In an irony that would not become clear for many months, Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.
Because Hezbollah leaders were alert to possible sabotage, the pagers could not originate in Israel, the United States or any other Israeli ally. So, in 2023, the group began receiving solicitations for the bulk purchase of Taiwanese-branded Apollo pagers, a well-recognized trademark and product line with a worldwide distribution and no discernible links to Israeli or Jewish interests. The Taiwanese company had no knowledge of the plan, officials said.
The sales pitch came from a marketing official trusted by Hezbollah with links to Apollo. The marketing official, a woman whose identity and nationality officials declined to reveal, was a former Middle East sales representative for the Taiwanese firm who had established her own company and acquired a license to sell a line of pagers that bore the Apollo brand. Sometime in 2023, she offered Hezbollah a deal on one of the products her firm sold: the rugged and reliable AR924.
“She was the one in touch with Hezbollah, and explained to them why the bigger pager with the larger battery was better than the original model,” said an Israeli official briefed on details of the operation. One of the main selling points about the AR924 was that it was “possible to charge with a cable. And the batteries were longer lasting,” the official said.
As it turned out, the actual production of the devices was outsourced and the marketing official had no knowledge of the operation and was unaware that the pagers were physically assembled in Israel under Mossad oversight, officials said. Mossad’s pagers, each weighing less than three ounces, included a unique feature: a battery pack that concealed a tiny amount of a powerful explosive, according to the officials familiar with the plot.
In a feat of engineering, the bomb component was so carefully hidden as to be virtually undetectable, even if the device was taken apart, the officials said. Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah did disassemble some of the pagers and may have even X-rayed them.
Also invisible was Mossad’s remote access to the devices. An electronic signal from the intelligence service could trigger the explosion of thousands of the devices at once. But, to ensure maximum damage, the blast could also be triggered by a special two-step procedure required for viewing secure messages that had been encrypted.
(my emphasis)
“You had to push two buttons to read the message,” an official said. In practice, that meant using both hands.
In the ensuing explosion, the users would almost certainly “wound both their hands,” the official said, and thus “would be incapable to fight.”
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u/Cook_0612 NATO Oct 06 '24
An encrypted message
Most top elected officials in Israel were unaware of the capability until Sept. 12. That’s the day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned his intelligence advisers for a meeting to discuss potential action against Hezbollah, Israeli officials said.
According to a summary of the meeting weeks later by officials briefed on the event, Mossad officials offered a first glimpse into what had been one of the agency’s most secretive operations. By then, the Israelis had placed booby-trapped pagers in the hands and pockets of thousands of Hezbollah operatives.
Intelligence officials also talked about a long-held anxiety: With the escalating crisis in southern Lebanon, there was a growing risk the explosives would be discovered. Years of careful planning and deception could quickly come to naught.
Across Israel’s security establishment, an intense debate erupted, officials said. Everyone, including Netanyahu, recognized that the thousands of exploding pagers could do untold damage to Hezbollah, but could also trigger a fierce response, including a massive retaliatory missile strike by surviving Hezbollah leaders, with Iran possibly joining in the fray.
“It was clear that there were some risks,” an Israeli official said. Some, including senior Israel Defense Forces officials, warned of the potential for a full-fledged escalation with Hezbollah, even as Israeli soldiers were continuing operations against Hamas in Gaza. But others, chiefly Mossad, saw an opportunity to disrupt the status quo with “something more intense.”
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, was not informed of the booby-trapped pagers or the internal debate over whether to trigger them, U.S. officials said.
Ultimately, Netanyahu approved triggering the devices while they could inflict maximum damage. Over the following week, Mossad began preparations for detonating both the pagers and walkie-talkies already in circulation.
In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, meanwhile, the debate over the Hezbollah campaign expanded to include another profoundly consequential target: Nasrallah himself.
Mossad had known of the leader’s whereabouts in Lebanon for years and tracked his movements closely, officials said. Yet the Israelis held their fire, certain that an assassination would lead to all-out war with the militia group, and perhaps with Iran as well. American diplomats had been pressing Nasrallah to agree to a separate cease-fire with Israel, without links to the fighting in Gaza, hoping for a deal that could lead to the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters from the southern Lebanese bases that threatened Israeli citizens in communities near the border.
Senior Israeli officials said they voiced support for the cease-fire proposal, but Nasrallah withheld his consent, insisting on a cease-fire for Gaza first, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials said. Some senior political and military officials in Israel remained deeply uncertain about targeting Nasrallah, fearing the fallout in the region.
On Sept. 17, even as the debate in Israel’s highest national security circles about whether to strike the Hezbollah leader raged on, thousands of Apollo-branded pagers rang or vibrated at once, all across Lebanon and Syria. A short sentence in Arabic appeared on the screen: “You received an encrypted message,” it said.
Hezbollah operatives dutifully followed the instructions for checking coded messages, pressing two buttons. In houses and shops, in cars and on sidewalks, explosions ripped apart hands and blew away fingers. Less than a minute later, thousands of other pagers exploded by remote command, regardless of whether the user ever touched his device.
The following day, on Sept. 18, hundreds of walkie-talkies blew up in the same way, killing and maiming users and bystanders.
It was the first of a series of blows aimed at the heart of one of Israel’s most ardent foes. As Hezbollah reeled, Israel struck again, pounding the group’s headquarters, arsenals and logistic centers with 2,000-pound bombs.
The largest series of airstrikes occurred on Sept. 27, 10 days after the pagers exploded. The attack, targeting a deeply buried command center in Beirut, was ordered by Netanyahu as he traveled to New York for a United Nations speech in which he declared, speaking to Hezbollah, “enough is enough.”
“We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another Oct. 7-style massacre,” Netanyahu said in the speech.
The next day, Sept. 28, Hezbollah confirmed what most of the world already knew: Nasrallah, the group’s fiery leader and sworn enemy of Israel, was dead.
!ping FOREIGN-POLICY
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u/groupbot The ping will always get through Oct 06 '24 edited Oct 06 '24
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u/dizzyhitman_007 Raghuram Rajan Oct 06 '24 edited Oct 06 '24
Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.
Great return on investment, though
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u/DurangoGango European Union Oct 06 '24
It's insane. It was years? they eavesdropped on them for years, then blew them up?
No wonder Israel has been decimating their high command and pinpoint striking their weapons caches. They probably have more complete and accurate maps of Hezbollah's org chart and force disposition than Hezbollah does.
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u/ZCoupon Kono Taro Oct 06 '24
Crazy that for how many people died, many more are missing fingers or hands. They had to be holding both hands on the device to trigger it.
Also interesting that it was aided by someone with ties to Hezbollah and a Taiwanese pager company who was able to make the pitch without knowing their origin. Still not sure how that worked exactly.
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u/GrandePersonalidade nem fala português Oct 06 '24
It's bizarre how a pretty clear violation of international law is being romanticized just because it was high-tech and because the safety of the people affected (innocent Lebanese who could be near the devices with no fault of their own) are seen as inherently less valuable than those of westerners.
One particular focus is Article 7(2) of the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which was added to an international law focused on the use of conventional weapons in 1996. Both Israel and Lebanon have agreed to it.
It prohibits the use of booby traps, which Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, defines as "objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use."
In a statement, Fakih said the use of "an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction." Human Rights Watch has called for an immediate and impartial investigation into the incidents.
"Israel is a party to that Protocol," wrote Richard Moyes, a director at Article 36, an advocacy group that focuses on international law in the context of civilian casualties in conflict zones. In a message to NPR about the rule, commonly known as Article 7(2), he wrote of the attacks: "I think there are lots of other legal problems here under the general rules of war — but it feels like it is a direct breach of this rule."
Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser on the use of military force at the U.S. State Department, told NPR's Morning Edition on Friday that information obtained since the explosions "implicate[s] Israel in these attacks, and also suggests that these attacks violate this prohibition on the use of booby traps or other devices in this fashion."
Finucane pointed out in a post on the website Just Security that the U.S. Defense Department also references that same article from those amended 1996 protocols in its own "Law of War Manual," with an oft-cited example of communications headsets that Italian military units booby-trapped with explosives after retreating during World War II.
Finucane, now a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, told NPR that broader internationally recognized and ratified laws of war contained requirements that parties to a conflict take "feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians" and "take into consideration proportionality when launching attacks."
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u/FYoCouchEddie Oct 08 '24
This is objectively wrong.
The definition of booby trap in the convention is
any device or material which is designed, constructed, or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act.
That isn’t at all the definition that the HRW “expert” made up. And it shows these explosive pagers function unexpectedly. They exploded precisely when Israel affirmatively detonated them. Booby traps are things like a drawer that’s wired to explode when someone opens it; the person setting the trap doesn’t know when it’s going to function, it just goes off automatically when someone triggers it.
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u/GrandePersonalidade nem fala português Oct 08 '24
Please, learn to use the word "objectively". You used it very poorly, and it makes you sound like the "unintelligent online argumentative type", something that both of us know you aren't. Your entire reply is extremely subjective, and I would guess your very subjective and biased opinion is connected to the fact that your entire post history for months is composed of you blindly defending every single Israeli action.
Key prohibitions with regard to the use of booby-traps are to be found in Article 7, paragraph 2, which stipulates as follows: “It is prohibited to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.” Much will depend on the precise way in which these devices were produced. In my view, there is a distinction that must be drawn between booby-trapping an object and making a booby-trap to look like an apparently harmless portable object. The former activity occurs, for example, when an explosive booby-trap device is applied to a door or drawer, such that when a person opens either, the device explodes.
Paragraph 1 of Article 7 lists the objects that must not be booby-trapped in that sense. Paragraph 2, by contrast, is simply prohibiting making booby-traps that look like apparently harmless portable objects. The information in the early reports suggests that once the arming signal has been sent, the devices used against Hezbollah in Lebanon fall within Article 7(2) and are therefore prohibited on that basis. Further details as to the devices in later reports may, of course, affect this provisional conclusion.
Note should also be taken of Article 7(3) which provides,
Without prejudice to the provisions of Article 3, it is prohibited to use weapons to which this Article applies in any city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians in which combat between ground forces is not taking place or does not appear to be imminent, unless either:
(a) they are placed on or in the close vicinity of a military objective; or
(b) measures are taken to protect civilians from their effects, for example, the posting of warning sentries, the issuing of warnings or the provision of fences.
Of course, if later available information confirms the illegality of the weapons as such, the paragraph 3 provisions become potentially moot. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the paragraph 3 requirements are probably satisfied because the pagers issued to Hezbollah were likely “in the close vicinity” of the users to whom they were issued, thus satisfying sub-paragraph (a).
For completeness, mention should also be made of “other devices” which are also regulated by Protocol II and Amended Protocol II to the CCW and which, as noted above, are also subject to the prohibitions and restrictions in Article 7 of Amended Protocol II. These are defined in the former treaty as “manually-emplaced munitions and devices designed to kill, injure or damage and which are actuated by remote control or automatically after a lapse of time” (art. 2(3)). In Amended Protocol II, the definition of “other devices” is as follows, “manually-emplaced munitions and devices including improvised explosive devices designed to kill, injure or damage and which are actuated manually, by remote control or automatically after a lapse of time” (art. 2(5)).
I have previously suggested that the use of the word “manually” is designed to distinguish between munitions that are individually and directly emplaced by a person and those that are mechanically emplaced (p. 161). Where the exploding pagers are concerned, my provisional view is that we are dealing here with booby-traps. The munition is not being manually emplaced in the manner required by the “other device” definition. The pager is being adapted to convert it into a booby-trap of the sort addressed by Article 7(2) of Amended Protocol II and on that basis it would appear, considering what is currently known and assumed, to be an unlawful weapon.
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u/FYoCouchEddie Oct 09 '24
Please, learn to use the word "objectively". You used it very poorly, and it makes you sound like the "unintelligent online argumentative type", something that both of us know you aren't. Your entire reply is extremely subjective,
No, my post was not subjective. The HRW interviewee used a completely incorrect definition of the word “booby trap.” That can’t be disputed at all. There is also no reasonable dispute that the beepers do not satisfy the definition of booby trap.
and I would guess your very subjective and biased opinion is connected to the fact that your entire post history for months is composed of you blindly defending every single Israeli action.
No, I don’t blindly defend Israel, nor do I defend every single Israeli action. If you paid closer attention, you would see that I very much oppose the settlements, for instance, because they do violate international law. When I defend Israel, it is with very clear vision because most of the allegations against it are stupid.
Key prohibitions with regard to the use of booby-traps are to be found in Article 7, paragraph 2, which stipulates as follows: “It is prohibited to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”
This supports my argument. Paragraph 7(2) had to be expanded beyond just “booby traps” to also include “other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects,” which necessarily means that not all apparently harmless portable objects are booby traps.
Of course, if later available information confirms the illegality of the weapons as such, the paragraph 3 provisions become potentially moot.
It is unclear if he is referring to Article 7(2) as barring the weapons as such. Article 7 is not artfully drafted, but if he is that would render Article7(3) entirely moot, so I assume he is not.
Where the exploding pagers are concerned, my provisional view is that we are dealing here with booby-traps. The munition is not being manually emplaced in the manner required by the “other device” definition.
This is fallacious reasoning. Arguing that it does not count as an “other device” only proves it is not an “other device,” not that it is a “booby trap.” He assumes a false dichotomy whereby it must be one or the other.
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u/GrandePersonalidade nem fala português Oct 09 '24
Lol, ok. You have already been thoroughly debunked in content, and trying to make up for it in volume won't help. I won't get into the 20 comments chains you usually drag people into.
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u/JesusPubes voted most handsome friend Oct 07 '24
yeah but they were guaranteed to also get a hezbollah member so it's targeted and totally a-ok
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u/GrandePersonalidade nem fala português Oct 07 '24
Guaranteed, yes, absolutely. I'm sure that none blew up in the hands of family members or general civilian administrators of the party who never engaged in any military action.
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u/Q-bey r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion Oct 06 '24
!ping ISRAEL&MIDDLEEAST
My favorite part: