Israel’s pagers of death herald new tech war tactic

In a bold display of technological warfare, Israel has reportedly orchestrated a devastating strike on Hezbollah by clandestinely turning the group’s communication devices into deadly weapons.

Multiple media outlets reported that simultaneous explosions of Hezbollah’s communication devices rocked Lebanon, killing 12 people, including two children, and injuring nearly 3,000.

The devices were reportedly tampered with to include small amounts of explosives next to the battery and were triggered by a remotely sent message. Certain reports claimed the devices were made by Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, which the company denied, saying it gave a Hungary-based company a license to make them under its brand.

Other reports suggested, with apparent photographic evidence, that they were made by Japan’s Icom. However, the company claimed the model had been out of production for a decade and vowed to launch an investigation into the reports.

Hezbollah has blamed Israel, which has remained silent, as has been typical in similar cases. Indeed, the possibility that Israeli intelligence had a hand in the devices’ production cannot be ruled out. The attack comes amid heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, following cross-border skirmishes that began after Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Hezbollah, known for using pagers to avoid surveillance, appears to have suffered a significant breach in its communication infrastructure. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among the injured, with reports stating he lost an eye in the blast.

Vowing retaliation, Hezbollah launched rocket attacks on Israeli positions shortly after the blasts. This latest development threatens to destabilize the region further, with the UN Security Council scheduled to meet on the incident.

Compromising adversary supply chains is not a new tactic. For instance, during the Vietnam War, the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) seeded Communist supply lines with small arms rounds and mortar shells packed with explosives instead of propellants.

This spiked ammunition would explode upon firing, destroying the firearm and possibly killing or seriously injuring the shooter. In the case of more powerful ammunition, such as mortar shells, the explosion could kill the entire weapon crew.

Similarly, in the ongoing Syrian civil war, the Syrian government has seeded black market ammunition supply lines with spiked ammunition, with equally devastating results for opposition forces.

Such a tactic is not limited to low-tech ammunition. In 2018, the Chinese military planted tiny microchips into sensitive US servers manufactured by Supermicro at their subcontractor factories in China.

These servers are used by US intelligence and military institutions, with the chips acting as a backdoor for China to extract classified information. 

Israel’s recent attack may be seen as an evolution of the tactic, combining physical sabotage in placing explosives inside adversary electronics and cyberattack by detonating these spiked devices in sync.

Israel could also gather intelligence on Hezbollah movements and locations by monitoring the communications traffic of injured Hezbollah personnel in the aftermath of the attack.

At the strategic level, Israel’s high-tech attack on Hezbollah sends a message that it can strike at any place and time of its choosing. The attack may be a warning to Hezbollah not to engage in full-scale hostilities with Israel to take the pressure off Hamas in Gaza and force Israel into a two-front war. It also shows how deeply Israel has penetrated Hezbollah’s supply chains.  

The attacks are also consistent with Israel’s preferred approach of unconventional targeted killings. These operations range from allegedly using an unspecified airborne projectile to assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran to using planted bombs and remotely-controlled machine guns to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientists to hobble its nuclear weapons program.

However, Israel’s unconventional attack was aimed at not just the Hezbollah leadership but also at its rank-and-file operatives, with the choice of weaponizing pagers commonly used by the organization in an apparent attempt to focus the attack on specific personnel.

That said, Israel may be sending a message to Hezbollah that even its rank-and-file operatives are not safe from its reach in their supposedly safe havens in Lebanon.

At the operational level, this attack may force Hezbollah to rethink its communications infrastructure. In the first place, Hezbollah opted for low-tech means of communication, mainly pagers, to avoid using smartphones, which were deemed vulnerable to Israeli hacking and interception.

Israel’s unconventional attack may force Hezbollah to consider alternative methods of communication, which could make running the organization far less efficient. It could also force Hezbollah to take a hard look at its supply lines, especially its pipeline for sophisticated electronics for drones and missiles.

At the tactical level, the attack may have taken out a substantial number of Hezbollah operatives, inflicting significant casualties and depleting a considerable portion of its manpower at a time when it may be gearing up for full-scale war with Israel.

Israel’s attack will likely make it imperative for Hezbollah to implement an alternative communications infrastructure, ranging from Intranet to underground cable infrastructure.

However, even with all of Israel’s technological advantages over Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, the main caveat is that even the most devious of tactics or most sophisticated military technology cannot neutralize an adversary driven by ideology, especially if they fight as a decentralized insurgency.

While Israel may have struck a severe blow against Hezbollah this time, the latter is just a proxy in the more significant Israel-Iran conflict, part of Iran’s much more extensive “Axis of Resistance,” encompassing Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Syrian government, Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen, among others.

Further, Israel’s attack shows the possibility that any electronic device on a network has the potential to be weaponized, opening a new realm in warfare.

This raises concerns that these compromised devices may end up in civilian possession, increasing the urgency for militaries to secure their supply chains—a daunting task in an interdependent, globalized world.