Almost 3,000 people were injured and several killed in Lebanon on Tuesday after their pagers simultaneously exploded in an attack that reports claim was orchestrated by Israel against Hezbollah. Some of the victims were children and doctors though so critics have characterized this as an act of terrorism which violates the laws of war. In any case, it was an audacious attack that’ll go down in history for its novelty, which makes it worthwhile analyzing in the context of the ongoing regional proxy war.
For background, Hamas’ sneak attack against Israel on 7 October was exploited by Israel as the pretext for collectively punishing the Palestinians in Gaza through a large-scale bombing campaign and invasion, which has since expanded to include targets in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. For all intents and purposes, it’s now a regional proxy war between Israel and the Iranian-led Resistance Axis which counts Hezbollah as one of its most powerful members.
The “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) that’s emerged between them as a result of Israel’s not-so-secret nuclear capabilities and the Resistance Axis’ impressive conventional ones has prevented the outbreak of an all-out war up until now. Nevertheless, this protracted conflict benefits the Resistance Axis much more than Israel, the second of whom has seen its pre-war reputation as a military leader and a seemingly invincible one at that (excluding the “fluke” of 2006 as its supporters see it) shattered.
Where Israel has the advantage is in hitting its adversaries where it hurts is through regional bombings and intelligence operations, but the first have yet to achieve their desired goal of comprehensively degrading their capabilities. Accordingly, intelligence operations have increasingly been relied upon, especially due to their powerful psychological effect, ergo assassinating Hamas’ political chief in Tehran this summer and the latest pager attack.
The most recent intelligence operation was arguably the most damaging in terms of its psychological and strategic impact. Regarding the first, it showed that Israel was able to compromise Hezbollah’s logistics to reportedly plant explosives near their pagers’ batteries, which then supposedly went off after the latter was manipulated into overcharging so as to detonate them. As for the second, it took almost 3,000 operatives out of the war for now, though at the cost of maiming and even killing civilian casualties too.
While some observers are concerned that this could precede a 2006-like invasion of Lebanon, especially after the Israeli Security Cabinet declared that stopping Hezbollah’s cross-border shelling and returning displaced people to Northern Israel is now one of their war goals, that might not come to pass. After all, MAD is still in effect, though hawkish Israelis like Bibi and those around him might dangerously gamble that they could bait the US into intervening on their side in order to tilt the odds in their favor.
Unless they go for broke, which can’t ever be ruled out, it’s possible that Israel only intended to cripple Hezbollah’s operations to a degree in order to coerce it into concessions or get it to escalate first. To explain, Israel wants Hezbollah to stop striking its northern areas, yet Hezbollah won’t do so unless Israel stops striking Lebanon’s southern ones. Their security dilemma is such that neither wants to look weak by being the first to cease hostilities, especially since they don’t trust the other to reciprocate.
There’s also the issue of a ceasefire in Gaza, the terms of which might not meet Hezbollah’s interests since Israel could accept a compromise there only to redirect its military towards Lebanon, in which case it would be disadvantageous for the group to relinquish its buffer zone along the border. Israel has also created its own buffer zone on the Lebanese side, but Hezbollah’s is much more significant since it’s a non-state group while Israel is a state actor, which makes the first look stronger and the second weaker.
If Israel could get Hezbollah to become the first to cease fire or at least curtail hostilities along the frontier, then it could be easier for Israel to follow suit, thus facilitating the return of its aforementioned displaced people whose flight under duress reinforced perceptions that Israel isn’t really inconvincible. On the other hand, the pager attack could have also been intended to provoke Hezbollah into escalating in a way that could push the US into directly intervening and thus raising the odds of an Israeli victory.
To be clear, US military intervention in any future Israeli-Hezbollah war wouldn’t automatically lead to the first’s victory, but Bibi and other hawks might still be hellbent on having it happen. What observers are convinced makes the most sense isn’t always seen that way by policymakers. Israel’s actions throughout the course of the ongoing regional proxy war, from bombing the Iranian Consulate in Damascus to assassinating Hamas’ political chief in Tehran and now the pager attack, testify to this fact.
Despite taking around three thousand Hezbollah operatives out of the war for now, Israel might still not feel comfortable enough trying its hand at another invasion of Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah still has a lot of fighters left for launching its enormous missile stockpile against Israel as part of MAD. Bibi is also still unsure whether he could count on the US to rescue Israel if it’s losing. If he was confident that he’d win on his own, then he would have likely gone ahead with it by now.
Observers should also remember that the pager attack isn’t repeatable due to Hezbollah changing its communication methods in response to what just happened, thus raising the question about why Israel went through with it now. While some speculate that this was because Hezbollah heard that their pagers might have been tampered with so it was a now-or-never moment, this analysis argues that it was deliberately done for the psychological and strategic impact that was explained.
Israel has become fatigued after all the fighting in Gaza failed to completely destroy Hamas. Its carefully cultivated reputation as the only “moral” country in the region is in tatters after the large toll that its conflict has exacted on Palestinian civilians while perceptions of its military invincibility are shattered. The economy also isn’t doing all that well either and unrest is rising, both within society and among members of Israel’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”).
If Bibi feels coerced by circumstances into accepting a compromise in Gaza that doesn’t meet any of the goals that he earlier declared to be fighting for, and he doesn’t decide to roll the dice out of desperation by invading Southern Lebanon, then he might want as much of a “face-saving” exit strategy as possible. It’s here where the pager attack comes into play since it hit Hezbollah hard, though the group is far from crippled, and might create the conditions (or so he thinks) for a mutual ceasefire along their border.
If it has the opposite effect of worsening hostilities, then that’s also perversely beneficial to him since Hezbollah’s response might be severe enough to pressure the US into directly intervening, which is why a continuation of the status quo is the last thing that he’d expect. The same logic applies to Iran’s delayed response to the assassination of Hamas’ chief in its capital. Neither were game-changers, but gambles to either de-escalate or escalate in ways that advance Israel’s interest as Bibi perceives them to be.
