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our reporter bai bo

lebanese minister of public health firas abyad said that the pager explosion on the afternoon of the 17th injured more than 4,000 people and killed 11 people. the injured also included the iranian ambassador to lebanon, who was slightly injured.

judging from the released videos, the explosion was not very powerful and usually only injured the owner of the aircraft. however, such a large-scale explosion attack is enough to bring a huge psychological impact to hezbollah and many lebanese people. as a hezbollah official said, the target of this attack was not against individuals, but against the "entire country" of lebanon.

hezbollah uses pagers for security

after hezbollah's senior military commander shukur was killed in an israeli airstrike on july 30, the situation in lebanon suddenly became tense. however, after a period of silence, the tension suddenly escalated in an unexpected way on september 17. hezbollah stated that israel was responsible for the pager explosions in various parts of lebanon and pointed out that israel would be "justly punished."

"according to current reports from all parties and past cases, this form of attack in the middle east, such as tampering with some equipment to attack anti-israel forces such as hezbollah, is generally believed to be done by israel. i think there is no problem in pointing to israel in this incident," said qin tian, ​​deputy director of the institute of middle east studies at the china institutes of contemporary international relations.

why does hezbollah still widely use old-fashioned communication equipment such as pagers in an era of highly developed information and communication? military expert song zhongping said that pagers are one-way communication systems that cannot send signals to the outside world. it is much more difficult to locate them through pagers than through mobile phones. for the sake of safety and to avoid being accurately located and attacked by the israeli army, hezbollah in lebanon chose traditional pagers as a unified communication tool.

pagers have been used by senior hezbollah members for years, but became common after the first round of israeli-palestinian conflict broke out on october 7, when hezbollah leader hassan nasrallah warned members that israeli intelligence had infiltrated mobile phone networks.

israel is accustomed to using special methods to attack anti-israel forces. qin tian gave an example, saying that shukur was killed in an attack, which might be because he was lured to the attack site because he answered a phone call and was hit by israel.

the loophole may lie in the supply chain

thousands of pagers in different locations exploded almost simultaneously. how did israel detonate them? where did hezbollah make a mistake?

"it is obvious that the pager itself has been tampered with. there is not only explosives inside, but also a time fuse. it is detonated by sending a frequency signal or using some setting to change its temperature," said song zhongping.

qin tian also pointed out that in the bombing attack against hezbollah, it was obvious that someone had installed the explosive device in the pager in advance, rather than after hezbollah personnel had used it. the loophole should be in the supply chain.

after the incident, the taiwanese company golden apollo was accused of being the supplier of the pagers used by hezbollah. however, the company's head responded that the products used by hezbollah were not produced by them, but "labeled" products produced by european agents.

song zhongping believes that one of the possible reasons for the problem in the pager supply chain is that there was a "mob" in hezbollah who cooperated with the israeli intelligence and secret service (mossad) to tamper with the pagers at the manufacturer's source and other links in the supply chain.

as the current round of israeli-palestinian conflict approaches a year ago, israel's bizarre move can be said to be beyond everyone's expectations. qin tian believes that the pagers covered a large number of hezbollah members and related personnel, and israel tried to create panic in lebanese society; israel also wanted to expose hezbollah related personnel through the attack, and even the iranian ambassador to lebanon was injured, which exposed the secret connection between hezbollah and iran.

prove the importance of the invisible battlefield struggle

hezbollah is very concerned about telecommunications security. qin tian believes that after the pager attack, hezbollah may give up using pagers to ensure safety and use primitive methods such as oral transmission or notes to transmit information. another possibility is to use more internet and other methods to communicate to avoid giving israel the opportunity to launch an attack.

as for how hezbollah will retaliate, qin tian pointed out that in the face of such a large-scale attack, hezbollah will certainly retaliate to some extent. however, they do not have the ability to carry out precision attacks or special operations like israel, so it is difficult to retaliate against the israeli attack, and they can only use traditional means to fight back against israel. since hezbollah is also at a disadvantage compared to israel in terms of traditional military strength, it will face a difficult choice.

although us state department spokesman matthew miller said the united states "was not involved" and "had no prior knowledge of it," an unnamed us official still said that israel informed the united states of the situation "after the operation was completed" on the 17th.

"the united states asked israel not to engage in large-scale military conflict with hezbollah. israel used pagers as weapons to severely damage the backbone of hezbollah, which may delay the outbreak of large-scale military conflict between israel and lebanon." song zhongping pointed out that what hezbollah needs to do now is to find out the cause of the incident, or even find the "ghost inside", instead of rushing to retaliate against israel. if internal problems are not resolved, hezbollah will face huge challenges even if it goes to war with israel. the pager attack incident shows that the current forms of war and conflict have reached a level of ever-changing and pervasive. the competition on the front battlefield is crucial, but the competition on the invisible battlefield may also bring unexpected huge impacts.