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The suspected conversion by Israel of basic communication devices into bombs to attack Hezbollah demonstrates the deadly and confusing potential of unconventional warfare.
The unprecedented nature of the assault, with pagers and walkie-talkie radios detonating across Lebanon, also challenges the concept of “grey zone” attacks, which are typically designed to be conducted under the threshold of all-out armed conflict.
In this case, though, dozens of people were killed, including children, and thousands more wounded.
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Had such carnage been caused by a barrage of conventional missiles fired by Israel or an invasion by tanks and troops it would have been a clear act of war.
Instead, the remote-controlled explosions of pieces of technology – where it is not possible to see who is pressing the button – complicates the entire world’s ability to comprehend what is going on and to cohere a proportionate response.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind the coordinated blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday, barely 24 hours apart.
But in the clearest public acknowledgement, the country’s defence minister subsequently declared a new phase in a near year-long war that had been centred on Hamas in Gaza.
Now, Yoav Gallant said, the focus would shift towards Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
This could signal a more conventional use of arms by the Israeli military to attack Iran-backed Hezbollah, exploiting the chaos in the group’s ranks following the decimation of their lines of communication.
Pager explodes near cashier
Or it could mean yet more unconventional turmoil in the coming days, depending upon whether Israel has planted any more ticking time bombs.
Either way, governments around the world will surely be drawing lessons from what appears to have been a lengthy and covert effort by Israeli intelligence to infiltrate Hezbollah’s networks.
It is a reminder that – in war, and especially hybrid war – anything can be used as a weapon.
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The events in Lebanon also underline the fundamental vulnerability of the supply chains that are relied upon globally to deliver everything that is consumed, from mundane objects to the most complex pieces of equipment.
The exploitation of Hezbollah’s pagers and hand-held radios may well prompt all countries to double-check whether the communication devices that their officials use are safe.
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Nations, including the UK, have long been alert to the possibility of their respective enemies planting malware inside pieces of technology to be used in a cyber attack.
But the physical insertion of explosives into innocuous non-military pieces of equipment – which is what experts believe happened with the Hezbollah attacks – will be opening people’s eyes to a whole new level of risk.
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