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Lebanon explosions: Hizbullah faces huge dilemma over response to attacks

Movement must retaliate strongly for losses and humiliation, but cannot risk full-scale war with Israel

Hizbullah supporters in Beirut during a televised speech by its leader Hassan Nasrallah in November 2023. Photograph: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images
Hizbullah supporters in Beirut during a televised speech by its leader Hassan Nasrallah in November 2023. Photograph: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images
Michael Jansen's picture
Michael Jansen
Wed Sept 18 2024 - 17:19

Lebanon’s Hizbullah faces two big challenges over how to retaliate for the pager and walkie-talkie explosions, which the movement blamed on Israel. The attack undermined Hizbullah’s deterrent capacity, blinded its text messaging network and exposed serious security weaknesses. Hizbullah cannot evade or delay retaliation for the human losses and the humiliation inflicted by the Israeli operation.

However, Hizbullah’s hands are tied by host Lebanon, which demands restraint, and it cannot risk full-scale war with Israel. In 2006, Israel launched a deadly and devastating 34-day war on Lebanon in response to a Hizbullah ambush of an Israeli border patrol. At that time, Hizbullah was not a main actor on Lebanon’s political scene, as is currently the case, and Lebanon is now in the grip of its worst-ever political and economic crisis.

Hizbullah’s immediate task will be to create a secure means of communication between command and control and fighters. Public phone lines and mobiles are easily penetrated and cannot be used. Pagers were introduced and have proven to be deadly.

Hizbullah’s strength is in the loyal Shia community it serves by providing welfare, healthcare, education and reconstruction of war-damaged homes, but its mass following can compromise security. Before deciding on and mounting a calculated retaliatory operation, Hizbullah will want to identify and neutralise Israeli agents in its ranks. An anonymous Hizbullah official told Middle East Monitor that the pager debacle was “the biggest security breach” the group has suffered in the 11-month cross-border missile and drone attacks on Israel.

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Hizbullah has repeatedly been forewarned of large security lapses. The latest warning was the July 30th Israeli air strike that killed senior military strategist Fuad Shukr. This, reportedly, took place after he received a mysterious mobile call telling him to go to his flat on the seventh floor of a building in the Dahiyeh, the Hizbullah stronghold in east Beirut.

Hizbullah fighters carry the coffins of four comrades who were killed on Tuesday after their handheld pagers exploded. Photograph: Bilal Hussein/AP
Hizbullah fighters carry the coffins of four comrades who were killed on Tuesday after their handheld pagers exploded. Photograph: Bilal Hussein/AP

Hizbullah responded in traditional manner on August 25th with a huge missile launch which Israel expected and largely pre-empted by bombing rocket launch sites. This is unlikely to deter Hizbullah from carrying out a heavy retaliatory strike for the pagers attack, which may or may not be countered by Israel.

When fighting on the ground, Hizbullah is a formidable force but it remains trapped in the modus operandi of a regular army while Israel’s external intelligence agency Mossad has for decades carried out assassinations of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian opponents.

Israeli security expert Yossi Melman told the Guardian that the pager operation on Tuesday was launched after Israel’s domestic intelligence Shin Bet learned Hizbullah planned to target an ex-Israeli official using a remote explosive device activated in Lebanon. If this is correct, Hizbullah’s attempt at following Israel’s example failed due to the movement’s permanent penetration by Israeli informants and resulted in the pager debacle.