Israel rarely fesses up to its targeted strikes against its enemies, but yesterday’s mass pager explosions certainly bore the signature capability of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad. According to Lebanon’s government, more than 2,700 people were injured and 12 killed when several hundred pagers simultaneously exploded. A second wave of explosions today targeted radios and other devices.

Always take casualty numbers like those with a grain of salt. Arab countries are often as bad as Hamas when it comes to lying about Israel. Doing so plays on the sympathies of Western anti-Semites and hinders Israel’s ability to defend itself.

The target was Hezbollah, which, like Hamas, is an Iranian-backed terrorist militia at war with Israel. In fact, one of the wounded people was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. These jihadis are enemy combatants, and the “civilians” who sometimes die in Israeli counteroffensives are often working with or for those terrorist groups. Reports are that two children were among those killed. If true and they were innocent, that is tragic collateral damage, but remember that the jihadis who intentionally target Israeli civilians are not above using women and children as either human shields or suicide bombers. Again, neither are they above lying about casualties.

Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, brutally and indiscriminately murdering 1,200 people. Soon after that attack, Hezbollah began firing thousands of rockets into civilian areas in northern Israel, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes and opening another front in the same war. Iran would rather attack Israel with such proxies than wage open war itself.

But when Israel targets Hezbollah fighters with compromised pagers, Western leftists lose their minds.

How did it happen? Earlier this year, Hezbollah instructed its fighters to stop carrying smartphones because of Israel’s capability to use geolocation to target enemy fighters. Somehow, Israel intercepted the thousands of pagers Hezbollah ordered and distributed to these fighters and planted a small explosive charge in each one, which was then triggered by a master code sent to the pagers about 3:30 p.m. local time yesterday.

“Shalom!”

Boom!

Again, Israel’s government, military, or spy agency isn’t commenting at all. But the message to Israel’s Iran-backed enemies: We are capable of striking targets in creative and effective ways.

That’s a message Israel has sent before. “Israel has shown a remarkable ability to use intelligence and technology to strike behind enemy lines,” notes The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “In July it killed a Hezbollah leader in Beirut, and it was almost certainly behind the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a military guest house in Tehran. It reportedly used a remotely controlled machine gun to kill Iran’s leading nuclear scientist in 2020.”

Looking forward is also important. “No doubt, the simultaneous, coordinated detonation of the unsuspecting bombs in Hezbollah fighters’ pockets is a coup,” writes Noah Rothman. “The degree to which Israeli intelligence has penetrated Iran’s security services and those of its terrorist proxies is astounding, and it may have a deterrent effect on the Iranian regime. But Hezbollah will not be deterred into voluntary submission. The pager strikes are only the opening salvos of a more dangerous conflict, which now seems all but inevitable.”

Hezbollah, call your office.

Follow Nate Jackson on X/Twitter.