Israeli terrorist attack on Hezbollah: Netanyahu wants a regional war

At least nine people were killed – including a 10-year-old girl – and over 2,800 injured, many of them left in a critical condition, when pagers they were carrying exploded, in an unprecedented coordinated attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon. American officials said Israel was behind the attack, which had been prepared for months and takes place as Netanyahu’s cabinet just voted to widen the war aims to include the return of those who had been displaced from the north of the country to their homes, which is code for launching an invasion of Lebanon. 

Let’s call things by their proper name. This is a terrorist attack committed by Israel, in violation of Lebanon’s national sovereignty, against a party which is part of that country’s government coalition, which has affected hundreds of civilians (both members of Hezbollah who are part of the civilian infrastructure and their relatives, friends, colleagues, passers-by) and which is aimed at provoking an escalation leading to an all out regional war.

The first thing that has to be said is that if, for argument’s sake, Iran, Hezbollah or the Houthis had carried such a widespread attack, the whole of the so-called international community would be up in arms issuing strongly worded condemnations. They would – accurately – describe the perpetrators as terrorists and put them on a blacklist. Then they would proceed to arm to the hilt those on the receiving end of the attack with the most modern weaponry, in the name of the right to self-defence. 

However, since it is Israel which has carried out the attack, and this country is one of the very few trustworthy allies of US imperialism in this crucially important region, none of this will happen.

The sardonic US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, limited himself to saying that the US had nothing to do with the attack and that it had not been tipped off in advance, an assertion that you can take with a large pinch of salt. Not a lot happens in the Middle East without the knowledge of US intelligence.

If they did not know that this attack was going to be carried out, then that does not reflect well on Washington. It would mean its most trusted ally chose not to forewarn them and they themselves failed to find out. 

Of course, rather than condemning the terrorist attack – and by any interpretation of international law, this constituted terrorism – Miller appended his claims of ignorance with yet another call on Iran “not to take advantage of any incident to add further instability.”

These are the callous double standards of the so-called ‘rules-based international order’. Israel carries out a bloody murderous campaign against Gaza, lasting nearly a full year, killing 40,000 people, most of them civilians, including women and children. The US continues to support it, unwaveringly, with billions of dollars of military aid and funding, and vows to stand by it whatever happens. Then Israel kills the leader of Hamas in Iranian territory and the US calls for Iran to show restraint. Israel carries out a mass terrorist attack in Lebanon against one of the parties in the governing coalition and, again, the US calls on Iran (not Israel!) to show restraint. 

Take a look at where people were and who they were surrounded by when their pagers exploded.
Can you see the young child just steps away?
This was an indiscriminate attack by Israel on civilians in Lebanon, and it falls under the West’s supposed definition of terrorism.
We’ve… pic.twitter.com/L68YN6TeZA

— Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui (@sabreenaGS) September 17, 2024

How was the attack carried out?

According to several intelligence sources quoted by western and Arab media, the attack against Hezbollah was carefully prepared months in advance. In the aftermath of the 7 October Hamas attack, Israel has carried out a number of selective assassinations of high-ranking Hezbollah officials. In order to prevent Israel from pin-pointing their location, by February Hezbollah moved from using mobile phones to using pagers, which communicated via radio waves and are meant to be much more difficult to locate.

So far, not a lot of details are known about the precise way in which the attack was carried out. According to the same reports published in western and Arab media, it seems that the pagers which exploded were part of a new batch recently distributed by the organisation in the last few months. 

According to The New York Times: 

“Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.“

The pagers used for the attack were almost all AP924 models from the Taiwanese maker Gold Apollo. The explosion of the pagers was not provoked simply by an overheating battery. A small amount of military grade material, perhaps as little as three grams, was embedded near the battery. The pagers were also rigged with a switch which could be triggered remotely via a coded message to provoke the explosion. 

The pagers received a call, then became very hot and exploded. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have reported that the pagers were programmed to beep for 10 seconds before the explosion so that the user would bring them to eyesight level thus causing maximum damage. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was also a victim of the attack. 

It seems that about 5,000 pagers were ordered and distributed to members of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with some going to Syria as well, and those affected were the ones that were switched on and receiving messages at the time of the attack. 

From this information we can draw some conclusions. One is about the sophistication and foreplanning of Israeli intelligence, and the degree to which they are able to penetrate their enemies, particularly Hezbollah.

In this case, they would have had to know when and from which company they were ordering the pagers in order to tamper them before they arrived in Lebanon and were distributed. If the tampering of the pagers took place in Taiwan, that would raise questions about the level of knowledge and cooperation between Israeli intelligence and both the island’s government and that of the manufacturer.

The manufacturer, Gold Apollo, claims that the pagers were made by a different company, BAC Consulting, based in Budapest, with which it has an agreement, allowing it to use their brand name. It is still not clear at what point the pagers were modified by Israeli intelligence. Was it at the point of production, before or after they arrived in Lebanon? 

Preparing to invade Lebanon

But the most important question to answer is, why now? Israel security service Shin Bet claims to have just foiled a Hezbollah attack on a former senior security officer, who has not been named. This is just for the consumption of public opinion. The real reason lies elsewhere. 

On the same day as the attack against Hezbollah, the Israeli cabinet had voted to expand its war aims to include the safe return of Israeli citizens who have been evacuated from the north of the country and to keep them safe from exchange of fire over the Israel-Lebanon border. That means Israel is now officially preparing an invasion of Lebanon, with the stated aim of establishing a ‘buffer zone’ to “guarantee security in the north of Israel”.

It is against this background that we have to see the terrorist attack on Tuesday. With it, Israel hopes to kill two birds with one stone. First, the attack would eliminate a number of Hezbollah officials, provoke confusion and disarray as well as sow doubts within the organisation about the level and degree of infiltration by Israeli security. Second, Israel probably hopes that the attack would provoke a furious and violent reaction on the part of Hezbollah which then would serve as a justification for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

A report in Al-Monitor claims that Israeli intelligence originally planned to use the plot to coincide with a ground invasion of Lebanon, but that they thought Hezbollah was becoming suspicious of the pagers and that they therefore had to explode the devices, or lose their chance to use them entirely. This may be true, or just a story leaked to the media to divert attention from the real reason. Whatever the case, the attack took place very conveniently at a time when preparations for an Israeli ground invasion are being finalised.

What is Israel’s aim in planning yet another invasion of Lebanon? There is actually a very deep split within Israel about this question, a split which reaches to the highest echelons of power, the state and the military.

In recent days, both Kan, Israel’s public broadcasted and Channel 13, reported openly about these splits. According to these reports, top army officer Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, in charge of the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command, is agitating in favour of launching an invasion of Lebanon, but Defence Minister Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi are against. 

Gaza war aims not achieved

Those opposing an invasion in Lebanon are not peace-loving doves. They can see, however, that from a military point of view it does not make sense to pick on a formidable enemy like Hezbollah now. Hezbollah possesses an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and previously forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in the 2006 invasion. Meanwhile, such a war would come at a time when the IDF has not been able to achieve its stated war aims in Gaza and has been unable to quash Palestinian armed resistance in the West Bank.

There are splits in the Israeli regime about whether now is the time to invade Lebanon, given that Israel has failed to achieve its war aims in Gaza, and Hezbollah represents a far more powerful enemy / Image: khamenei.ir

After nearly a year of a bloody campaign, the truth is that Israel has not been able to rescue the hostages and is also very far from having destroyed Hamas. Do not take my word for it. The New York Times quoted the assessment of a former commander of the IDF Gaza division:

“Hamas is winning this war,”said Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, “Our soldiers are winning every tactical encounter with Hamas, but we’re losing the war, and in a big way.” Hamas civilian officials and military operatives still control large parts of Gaza and when the IDF carries out a “cleaning operation”, the organisation comes back and regains control “15 minutes later”. “There’s no one that can challenge Hamas there after Israeli forces leave,” said Shamni.

Exactly the same point was made in June by the IDF’s top spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, who said: “The idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish — that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” in a public clash with Netanyahu. 

On the other hand, Netanyahu’s own interests are completely different and even at odds with those of significant sections of the Israeli ruling class and state apparatus. They can be summarised thus: he needs to remain in power at all costs, otherwise he faces an election defeat and prosecution for multiple crimes which can even land him in jail.

In order to remain in power he needs the war to continue. And as the war in Gaza is not producing the desired results, he is quite prepared to launch a military adventure in Lebanon, which could precipitate the region into an all-out conflict. In fact, an all-out conflict in the region would be in his interest, as mad as this may seem, as it would drag in the United States on the side of Israel, securing his position in power, or so he calculates.

Splits at the top

After the publicly-reported row with his own defence minister Gallant at a cabinet meeting discussion over Netanyahu’s constant and blatant sabotage of a hostage deal with Hamas, the Israeli PM is now manoeuvring to remove him from the cabinet.

In the last few days there have been frantic negotiations and horse trading. Netanyahu’s proposal is to bring in his former rival Gideon Sa’ar, who split away from Likud to form his own New Hope party, in order to replace Gallant. Concessions would have to be made to him regarding the controversial judicial reform, but to Bibi that does not matter now. The main question is to get rid of any voices in the cabinet opposing his Lebanon adventure. 

Gallant is also an obstacle to Netanyahu on another, related, matter. The ultra-orthodox parties have threatened to bring down his coalition if he does not exempt Yeshiva students from military service. Moved by his strong instinct for self-preservation, the PM is quite prepared to make a concession. Gallant is against.

The Israeli Business Forum, representing a large section of the country’s capitalists, warned Netanyahu against sacking Gallant, saying that the decision would “weaken Israel in the eyes of its enemies and will lead to deeper social divisions among its people” as well as having a negative impact on the economy: “The Prime Minister knows better than anyone that all the economic indicators show that Israel is deteriorating into an economic abyss and is sinking into a deep recession.”

But, alas, Netanyahu’s interests – his own survival – do not necessarily align with those of the capitalists at this particular time.

Netanyahu's sole aim is his own political survival, which are leading him to take a reckless course, which does not necessarily align with the interests of his western imperialist backers or the domestic Israeli capitalist class / Image: own work

It is not just Israeli capitalists that are worried. A report in ABC news quotes unnamed IDF and other military officers warning that Netanyahu “is pushing Israel into a potentially disastrous war with Hezbollah in Lebanon”. A war with Hezbollah “is easy to start, but very hard to end,” one such official said, on condition of anonymity. “We are losing the war, we are losing deterrence, we are losing the hostages.” The article in ABC states that there are “general concerns about whether Israel possesses sufficient munitions and missile and rocket/missile interceptors to defend itself in any confrontation with Hezbollah”. 

In a frantic attempt to avoid a regional war which would pull the US in, a senior Biden advisor, Amos Hochstein, was dispatched to Israel to try to sway Bibi against invading Lebanon. According to sources quoted by Axios, Hochstein insisted “that the U.S. does not believe a broader conflict in Lebanon will achieve the goal of returning displaced Israelis to their homes in the north,” and that “an all-out war with Hezbollah risks a much broader and protracted regional conflict”.

Of course, as on previous occasions, Netanyahu completely ignored this gentle nudge from the US and proceeded to do exactly the opposite of what he was advised to do. He is very well aware that the US might disagree with him on tactics or strategy, but at the end of the day, it will come down on his side.

Immediately after 7 October, Biden hurried to Israel to embrace the lunatic occupant of the PM’s office and told him in no uncertain terms that the US was on his side no matter what. In effect, by stating that US support was “ironclad”, Biden gave Netanyahu a blank cheque, which he proceeded to cash in, not once but several times.

US imperialism has, on occasion, disagreed publicly with him, and even threatened to withhold weapons shipments to Israel. This is partly for the public consumption of the US electorate – where it has had no impact whatsoever – and partly out of a genuine fear of the revolutionary implications of Netanyahu’s actions for other regimes in the region, which are also US allies and which Washington would not want to see overthrown.

The crucial point is that the Israeli PM knows full well that, at the end of the day, once it is all said and done, the US will always back Israel. This will be truer still in the case of a regional war.

So, Netanyahu listens to what Biden and his envoys have to say, and then proceeds to do whatever he thinks is best for himself, regardless of the fact that it is often the opposite of what the US just told him.

The same Axios report noted Netanyahu’s response to Hochstein: “Israel appreciates and respects the support of the Biden administration, but in the end it will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.” Translated from diplomatic parlance into plain English, he told him to “piss off!” 

The truth is that Netanyahu does not give a damn about the security of the residents of the north, in the same way that he does not care in the least about the fate of the hostages taken by Hamas and others. This much even the relatives of the hostages and large sections of the Israeli public have understood. To him, they are just so much small change to be used for his cynical machinations. 

If we are to examine cross-border attacks between Lebanon and Israel, the real picture emerges. Israel has carried out more than 80 percent of these attacks, killing over 80 percent of the victims. Many more civilians have been evacuated from the Lebanese side of the border than from the Israeli side. If we were to accept Netanyahu’s logic, Lebanon would be justified in invading Israel, not the other way around.

Since Hezbollah has repeatedly said that its attacks on Israel are in support of the people of Gaza and that they will stop if a ceasefire deal is signed between Israel and Hamas, the simplest way to guarantee the security of Israel’s northern citizens would obviously be for Israel to reach such a deal. That is precisely what Netanyahu has been deliberately sabotaging. 

A more recent report in Axios alleges that Biden’s advisor Hochstein was in Israel when Netanyahu, Gallant and top military officials took the decision to carry out the terrorist attack, but they decided not to say a word to him. It was only shortly before the pagers started exploding that Gallant called US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin to let him know that an attack on Lebanon was imminent.

Again, one has to take such reports with caution. The only source cited by Axios is an unnamed “US official” and, of course, the US would be interested in distancing themselves publicly from the attack. One detail in the story does ring true, however: that Gallant, who is known to be opposed to a Lebanon operation at this time, would call Lloyd Austin. The Defence Minister is the most direct US agent within the Cabinet, and Lloyd Austin is known to be on the slightly less warmongering wing of the Biden administration. But even if we were to accept that parts of this report are true, it would indicate that Washington did have prior knowledge of the attack, which is the opposite of what US spokesperson Miller adamantly affirmed. 

Combustible material can ignite a regional war

Israel’s attack on Lebanon is yet another reckless move by Netanyahu threatening to escalate the conflict in the region. Plenty of combustible material has already accumulated. There is still the unresolved matter of Iranian retaliation for the Israeli attack which killed Hamas leader Hanniyeh in Tehran. Clearly Iran is not interested in provoking a regional war. At the same time, it cannot allow itself to lose face when blatantly provoked by Israel. 

In recent days the Houthis launched an attack on Israel, with what they claim was a hypersonic missile. There is some discussion about the exact nature of the weapon used, but what is clear is that it travelled at a very high speed, was not intercepted by either the US or French navies in the region, and also partially avoided Israeli air defences. This is a worrying development for Israel. How the Houthis manage to manufacture or acquire what was clearly a sophisticated weapon is unknown. There is speculation that it might have come from Iran. 

We have seen the reckless provocations of western imperialism against Russia in relation to the war in Ukraine, and more specifically the discussion about allowing it to use British or US-made long range missiles to strike deep into Russian territory. It would only be logical for Russia, in response, to be interested in supplying US enemies in the Middle East with weapons and technology. There has been some speculation in the media that in August one such delivery was stopped at the last minute as a result of Saudi pressure on Russia. 

Pro-Iranian Iraqi militias have promised to help Lebanon in case of an Israeli invasion. The US is heavily exposed in the region, having military bases in several countries, which can become targets of attacks.

The exact course of events cannot be predicted in advance, but what is clear is that Netanyahu is interested, for his own reasons, in escalating the conflict and Israel’s terrorist attack on Hezbollah has brought that possibility closer. 

The irresponsible, reckless actions of one man are threatening to unleash a bloody conflict which would cause massive death and destruction. Israeli officials have spoken openly of “bombing Lebanon into the stone age” and of turning Beirut into a new Gaza. 

But Netanyahu is not the only one responsible. Israel would not be able to carry on its murderous campaign in Gaza, nor threaten a regional war, if it wasn’t for the “ironclad” support offered by US imperialism and Biden personally. If Washington were to completely cut off its military and financial aid to Israel, then the IDF would be rendered unable to continue its one-sided war. 

This is the nature of capitalist imperialism in the 21st century: horror without end. That’s why we say – down with the warmongers! If we are to achieve peace, we must overthrow the rotten system at the root of imperialism and war.