By Joshua Arnold

Twelve people were killed and nearly 2,800 were injured in Lebanon when pagers used by members of the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah simultaneously exploded at around 3:30 p.m. A Hezbollah official called the event the group’s “biggest security breach” since Hezbollah joined Hamas’s war against Israel last October.

No one has claimed official responsibility for the incident, but most observers believe Israel is the party with the intelligence, technical capability, and a clear motive for carrying out the attack. “Israel is not speaking on this,” Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) noted on “Washington Watch” Tuesday. “That’s usually the way,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins responded. “The Israelis never talk about how or who. They just stand by and watch.”

Likely Israeli involvement signals a possible new phase in Israel’s defensive war, suggested National Review’s Noah Rothman. After Hamas’s October 7 massacre, Hezbollah joined in its attack on Israel, intermittently launching rockets into civilian areas and forcing tens of thousands of Israelis to flee from their homes. In July, a Hezbollah rocket struck a soccer field in northern Israel, killing 12 children.

This week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will have to confront Hezbollah militants to make it safe for civilians to return to their homes in the north. To free up troops for that objective, Israel must first wind down operations to eradicate Hamas in Gaza.

However, the pager attack could be a precursor to any further action contemplated by Israel. Not only did the attack literally destroy their enemy’s primary communication devices, but it also resulted in severe injuries to thousands of Hezbollah operatives. “When the devices did explode, those who immediately checked their pagers suffered injuries to their hands and eyes, while those who delayed suffered leg and waist injuries,” The Wall Street Journal described.

Among the casualties were “key people that were actually helping lead and instruct the people that were under them,” said Lankford. “So, for these key leaders across Hezbollah, many of them just were seriously injured today, and some of them lost their life.” Ten of the 12 fatalities in the attack have been identified as Hezbollah operatives. (The other two casualties, sadly, were an eight-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. Hezbollah said 11 of its members were killed, possibly counting the 11-year-old among their number. One or two civilian casualties out of thousands of individual explosions demonstrates the remarkable precision of the operation.)

Among those wounded by the blasts, Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, lost one eye and severely injured his other eye. The nature of his injuries suggest that he possessed one of the Hezbollah pagers and was holding it when it exploded. These circumstances further confirm Iran’s involvement with the Lebanese group.

A Saudi media outlet reported that pager explosions also affected members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a terrorist-adjacent branch of the Iranian regime, injuring 150 and killing 19 IRGC in Syria. The IRGC denied this report.

Many questions remain unanswered about just how the attack was carried out. The pseudo-governmental terror group initially speculated that Israeli malware had targeted the devices, causing their rechargeable lithium batteries to overheat; some members escaped injury because they felt the pagers “heating up” and abandoned them before they exploded.

However, other sources, including an Israeli cybersecurity consultant, have suggested that explosives were somehow planted in the devices ahead of time, without affecting their usability until they were remotely detonated. He assessed that such an operation would have taken at least a year to plan.

The timeline suggests a much shorter runway for the operation. In February, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah directed Hezbollah members to rely on pagers instead of cell phones, fearing that cell communications could be tracked by Israeli intelligence. The exploded pagers were a new shipment designed to replace older models, which a Lebanese security source said were imported five months ago, which would mean in April. “Hezbollah adapted, but so, too, did the Israelis,” surmised Rothman.

The pagers bore the brand of a Taiwanese manufacturer, Gold Apollo, but they were manufactured in Budapest by a Hungarian firm, BAC Consulting KFT. It’s unclear what connections Israel may have with either company.

The media has responded with a characteristically anti-Israel, pro-terrorist slant. “We’ve entered a new era of futuristic warfare: Any device connected to the internet can be turned into a deadly weapon,” Axios exclaimed in response. “The same technique theoretically could be applied to any connected device, including your phone.” National Review’s Jim Geraghty clarified, “‘Any device connected to the internet can be turned into a deadly weapon’ if the Mossad has already inserted explosive material into the device.”

The Washington Post likewise declared that the pager explosions “ratcheted up tensions that have been building for months across the Israel-Lebanon border.” Tensions have not “been building” (note the passive voice) along the border. Hezbollah launched an active shooting war targeting civilian areas, and Israel responded by striking the terrorists’ rocket launchers. Israel is in a war, and the American media is blaming them for shooting back.

Apparently, the explosion of Hezbollah communications devices was not a one-off event. Shortly before publishing time, news broke that dozens of walkie-talkies had exploded in Lebanon at around 5 p.m. local time, killing at least nine and injuring more than 300 people.

At least one of the devices exploded at a funeral for a Hezbollah operative killed Tuesday. “Anyone who has a device, take out the battery now! Turn off your phones, switch it to airplane mode,” yelled Hezbollah security at the event. Hezbollah is reeling. What is the next move?

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.