From The Liver To The Knee: Operation Grim Beeper Sends Hezbollah A Message

Iran proxy's response is limited by lack of secure communications

Walkie talkies are usually worn at the hip and they appear to have been more explosive than pager bombs, likely because the batteries were larger

A military formation must do three basic things in order to deliver effective violence to an enemy: maneuver, use their weapons, and communicate with one another. Each of these endeavors supports the others. After a rash of Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah leadership in January and February, panic spread from the top down over insecure communications. “I don’t have a cellphone, but for those who do, I am explaining for the 100th time — particularly to our people in southern Lebanon — give them up,” Hassan Nasrallah said in February.

Every time there’s an assassination or infiltration into the organization, they tell us to look for the agents. Israel doesn’t need agents and collaborators because every cellular phone is a particularly lethal agent. It gives Israel all the information, even locations at home or on the street or in a car and whether you’re sitting in the front seat or the back…I tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife’s hands, and in your children’s hands is the agent. Bury it. Put it in an iron box and lock it.

For as long as 15 years, meanwhile, Israeli intelligence had used a Hungary-based front company, BAC Consulting, to sell pagers and walkie-talkie radios with batteries permeated in PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate), a powerful explosive, to Hezbollah.

Lethality Of Explosive Pagers Compares Favorably To Early Police Tasers

In my hot take on the instant results of the first pager attack that took place on Tuesday, I pointed out that the immediate death toll was reportedly lower than first-generation police Tasers, and used that historical example as context for the careful balance of lethality that Israel had set out to achieve.

A new report from Channel 12 in Israel confirms “it was regarded as ‘preferable’ that the large number of Hezbollah fighters whose devices exploded be badly injured rather than killed, in part because of the immense strain this placed on health services in Lebanon, and by extension the raised domestic pressure on Hezbollah.” It seems my early conclusion was correct: the pager-bombs reportedly contained a charge of three grams of PETN, enough to kill only a few people outright but inflict critical and debilitating injuries on very many.