Uzi Arad: Lebanon pager attack was ‘a surgical strike’

“What happened was not a coup de grace, but a method that we were forced to use to weaken Hezbollah and neutralize its offensive capabilities,” the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, former director of Mossad’s research and intelligence division and former security adviser to Netanyahu, Uzi Arad, underlines to Kathimerini regarding Israel’s attack on September 17 and 18 in which thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria.

“I must mention,” the author and scholar adds, “that cyber capabilities and the use of artificial intelligence are affecting the battlefield in all its aspects. Some have called the new capabilities a revolution in intelligence affairs, as it has become apparent that the dependence of the armed forces on digital communications and fast computers is acting as a force multiplier. However, at the same time, it presents vulnerabilities and targets for attack.”

He explains that this has all been done before in 1972, when Israel decided to retaliate against the murderers of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, and the operation to hold all those who took part in it accountable. The operation involved installing an explosive device in the telephone of one of the terrorists at home. The team then left, went to another country, and called him. The target answered and they asked him, “Are you Mustafa?” He answered, “Yes.” They pressed the button and the phone exploded without anyone being nearby.

Arad points out that “in the case of the pagers, the entire network was captured and by a single order they were detonated simultaneously. In my opinion, this is a surgical strike, as every one of the owners of these devices was a Hezbollah fighter. So, they were all confirmed terrorists and they all got what they deserved.

“You should remember,” he adds, “that for the past year Hezbollah has been savagely attacking Israeli settlements, kibbutzim and farms, and the entire northern part of Israel has been devastated by the activities of this group.”

Arad’s response to our question about a possible escalation of the war reflects the commonly accepted Israeli thinking about the future of the war: “Israel’s strategy is that it cannot tolerate having a paramilitary organization like Hezbollah, which has sophisticated offensive capabilities, such as drones, or which can send agents into our territory, alongside it. Thus, such an organization will sooner or later have to be completely neutralized, just as we cannot tolerate having Hamas on our borders.

“Now, whether what happened in Lebanon,” he concludes, “is a prelude to a ground offensive, we do not know, but it could easily turn into an all-out war that way. It is not certain, however, that Iran’s desire is to have an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. And, furthermore, it is not certain that Hezbollah has the need to escalate the tension to the maximum extent possible, because it will have to take into account that the price it will pay will be very high. So, it seems that we are now in a kind of competition as to how much further the situation will escalate and whether it will eventually reach all-out war.”