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[text/observer.com columnist xi yazhou]

this week, the pager explosion in lebanon attracted the world's attention. there are still many mysteries surrounding this attack, but it is certain that this attack method is no longer aimed at enemy combatants. judging from israel's current actions, its purpose is not part of a military operation, but to cause panic among the lebanese people.

this is actually in full compliance with the main content of the definition of terrorism reaffirmed by the united nations general assembly since 1994, namely "criminal actions intended to cause public panic". according to the previous consensus of the international community, it should be identified as a terrorist act. however, as the birthplace of modern terrorism, israel today naturally does not care about such condemnation; but from a military and political perspective, this action will not bring long-term benefits to israel, and they will sooner or later pay a heavy price for it.

first, let's sort out the known information about this operation. in terms of technology, israel's pager bombs are still unique. at present, they are likely to install petn explosives (petn explosives are also commonly used explosives, much easier to detonate than plastic explosives such as c4, which require electric detonators to detonate and only burn when exposed to open flames) in the battery part of the pager (the shell of this pager is welded and cannot be disassembled. the internal battery has a large capacity and can work continuously for dozens of days after being fully charged). taking advantage of the characteristics of this explosive that it will be detonated in about 5 seconds at 205 degrees celsius (partially decomposed and smoked before the explosion), the detonator is omitted, so only a few grams of explosives are needed to explode; coupled with the power of the battery's own combustion and explosion, it is enough to cause serious trauma to the wearer.

it is also reported that israel has set up a pager that rings and vibrates before the explosion, showing a message so that the wearer can hold it in his hand and read it. it explodes 5 seconds after the ringing. during this process, the pager becomes hot and smokes, which is consistent with the description of the phenomenon when petn is heated and detonated. whether it is an injury to the hand or head and face, or a direct explosion at the waist or trouser pocket, it is enough to cause serious trauma and cause the wearer to become disabled. the extremely small amount of explosives brings another benefit, that is, the wearer is seriously injured and needs treatment, but will not be easily killed on the spot, thus creating serious medical pressure on the opponent and also forming a psychological deterrent effect on others.

the second wave of walkie-talkie bombs that were detonated later were based on a similar idea. judging from the debris of the explosion, a small amount of explosives was placed on the circuit board of the walkie-talkie, close to the power chip of the walkie-talkie. it may also be that the circuit was modified so that when the walkie-talkie received a specific signal, the power chip would be overloaded, generating high temperatures to detonate the petn explosives. this is because the walkie-talkie battery is detachable. to ensure that the walkie-talkie explodes in the hands or on the target, the explosives must be placed in the walkie-talkie instead of the battery.

as for other explosions in lebanon, such as mobile phones, computers, even hair clippers, and some equipment in cars, the situation is more complicated. one possibility is that israel contaminated the supply chain by mixing some batteries with independent receiving circuits into the lebanese electrical appliance market, and then installed them in these devices during the maintenance process, causing random and indiscriminate killings to create panic.

another possibility is that these sporadic explosions are simply due to the fact that the lebanese electronics market is not strictly regulated, which leads to frequent battery explosions. it just happened to happen at the time when the pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, which is actually excessive panic. at present, we have not seen the statistics of these sporadic explosions, such as how many explosions there are, whether they exploded at the same time, etc., so we cannot rule out the possibility that these sporadic explosions are actually accidents.

the israeli army's choice of target for this attack is also worth mentioning. some friends believe that the damage caused by this attack to hezbollah's army was not serious, because the main explosions occurred in beirut and its suburbs, while hezbollah's "controlled area" is mainly in southern lebanon, where there are relatively few reports of explosions.

this requires talking about hezbollah's political form in lebanon. in theory, hezbollah's direct control of certain areas is indeed limited to certain areas, but its actual influence is throughout lebanon, especially in beirut. a friend of ours has interviewed hezbollah officials in beirut and introduced the relevant situation in the program "guanqi youyu". hezbollah actually learned from our experience during the anti-japanese war, that is, to establish underground organizations in "enemy-occupied areas" and directly do grassroots work through a large number of cadres with strong capabilities who can handle both civil affairs and capable armed forces, which is equivalent to our "armed work team" back then.

attacking these people will inevitably cause hezbollah to lose its actual control over the entire territory of lebanon for at least a short period of time, seriously affecting its ability to respond quickly, and also losing its ability to mobilize the people and support operations. because of the long-term struggle, hezbollah and other organizations have established rapid reconstruction capabilities, so they still have the ability to replace these cadres. under normal conditions, after a cadre is "targeted and eliminated" by israel, cadres from adjacent areas can temporarily take over, but now all the grassroots backbones have fallen at the same time, the replacement process will definitely be slower, and the impact is also huge. it may not be what some netizens say, that if the israeli army does not attack within 72 hours, it is basically a waste of bombing.

hezbollah's losses are huge, and the impact will be long-term. however, if the israeli army had not used the initial "shock effect" to launch ground military operations, hezbollah should have been able to organize an emergency team 72 hours later. although the efficiency may be greatly reduced, it will not be completely incapable. the israeli army did not launch an offensive and indeed lost the best opportunity.

hezbollah's grassroots regime in lebanon relies on a large number of grassroots organizations similar to the "armed work teams" that our party used to fight in enemy-occupied areas. therefore, this attack is highly targeted and is enough to seriously weaken hezbollah's control over the entire territory of lebanon.

according to current reports, israel's action allegedly began five months ago, after the "al-aqsa flood" incident. logically, this seems to be a revenge by israel, but it is obviously not a "reasonable" action. it can be seen that in israel's eyes, all people and organizations that oppose israel can become the targets of their revenge, whether it is the palestinian people, iranian officials, or hezbollah.

however, compared with the indiscriminate bombing of the palestinian region, the adoption of such a retaliatory measure does not reflect israel's strength, but rather that their means of action are greatly restricted. this is due to the constraints of the united states, which has restricted the american weapons that israel relies on, so that it cannot "use" these weapons to attack hezbollah. but this is not the most important thing. what really limits israel's means of attack is hezbollah's own combat effectiveness. since hezbollah's defense system in southern lebanon has been operated for many years, it is not something that can be easily dealt with by the israeli air force's bombing and ground attacks. as we can see from russia's current operations in ukraine, such offensive operations are very difficult. unless there is a generational advantage in technology and a huge advantage in manpower and firepower, it will definitely fall into a situation of heavy casualties and slow progress.

israel has tried in the past few decades, but it has already experienced the power of hezbollah's desperate resistance relying on a complex fortification system in previous ground operations. because israel's military force has fundamental defects in scale, it cannot achieve the strike intensity of thousands of sorties a day like the americans in the gulf war. its actual attack intensity is probably dozens of heavy bombs and thousands of artillery shells a day. in terms of firepower density, it is not much stronger than russia's attack on ukrainian positions. the israeli army is obviously not as strong as the russian army, and its ability to tolerate casualties is far less than that of russia.

since the 1960s, the israeli army's combat concept has been to maximize the role of armored forces, use mechanized forces to deal with opponents, and rely on the protection of tanks and armored vehicles to reduce casualties and suppress opponents. however, after the fourth middle east war in 1973, rebel forces such as hezbollah basically gave up the armored confrontation with the israeli army. of course, this is not a voluntary abandonment, but they have no possibility to build their own large armored forces. moreover, the war in 1973 has proved that the israeli army's armored forces, which have close relations with western countries, are well-trained and have advanced weapons, are much stronger than the middle eastern countries and anti-israel organizations that could only get a small amount of foreign aid at that time.

therefore, hezbollah and the plo could only make full use of the complex terrain of the city and use infantry anti-tank weapons, anti-tank missiles and other equipment to fight against the israeli army. as early as the 1973 middle east war, a phenomenon had already appeared that the infantry forces of egypt and syria were better than their armored forces in fighting against the israeli tank forces, because their armored forces were less trained than the israeli army. even if the equipment performance was similar and they had a large number advantage, they would be at a disadvantage in a real fight. on the contrary, the infantry forces that dug trenches, with the help of rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles, which were still new weapons at the time, could cause huge losses to the israeli armored forces when the israeli army lacked artillery fire cover.

hezbollah's basic concept of fighting the israeli army is to use terrain and fortifications to limit the israeli armored forces as much as possible, and then use more skilled infantry tactics to inflict losses on the israeli army. although the israeli army can still exchange ten for one in terms of casualties for a long time, this phenomenon has been reversed as hezbollah has further improved its fortification system in the past decade or so, and has accumulated a large number of experienced veterans.

except for the paratroopers and special forces, the israeli army can be considered as pure combat skills. conventional infantry troops are not only far behind hezbollah in experience and skills, but also may not have an advantage over their opponents in individual equipment. therefore, if they are forced out of their "turtle shells", they will often suffer heavy casualties. even in the previous israeli invasion of south lebanon, hezbollah armed forces with only a few people were able to rely on village fortifications to fight the israeli army for a long time and inflict heavy casualties on the latter.

according to some western experts, if we only consider traditional individual combat skills, hezbollah can be compared with the veterans of the rwandan army and be called world-class. of course, this view is obviously too subjective; if we only consider the region where they are located, this does not seem to be a big problem.

the israeli army cannot gain an advantage in the battle with hezbollah's armed infantry. in order to reduce casualties, its tactical actions tend to be conservative, but this makes it easier for the opponent to adopt flexible tactics, and ultimately casualties on its side are still difficult to avoid. now the israeli army has actually lost the ability to win a large-scale ground war against hezbollah.

this way of fighting makes hezbollah show a strong characteristic of being more capable of self-preservation than of attacking. if you say that they take the initiative to attack israel, they will suffer a loss. but if israel takes the initiative to attack them, even if it cannot temporarily obtain national support dispatched by hezbollah's underground government, hezbollah's armed forces alone are indeed not something that israel can defeat by mobilizing a few brigades to attack.

this may be the main reason why israel did not take advantage of the shock effect of the bombing attack on hezbollah to launch an attack immediately.

in addition, although, as mentioned earlier, hezbollah's grassroots organizations have suffered heavy losses and will certainly have long-term impacts, the foundation of the phalange party previously supported by israel in lebanon has now been basically eaten away by hezbollah. there is no possibility that the pseudo-regime supported by israel will take advantage of the weakening of hezbollah's grassroots control to inflict subsequent attacks on them.

it is difficult to guarantee absolute security of the logistics supply chain in the contemporary world. the israeli attack has sounded the alarm for the whole world. the means of warfare today are more secretive and dangerous than when "unrestricted warfare" was envisioned. supply chain attack and defense will become a new battlefield of life and death.

for israel, this attack seems to have no practical significance other than creating more hatred, causing the israeli-palestinian conflict to continue, prolonging the life of the netanyahu regime, and ensuring that it survives until the results of the us election are announced.

in the past, we often said that although israel is a very unkind country, it is still very determined to safeguard its own security interests. but this time they have put themselves under the inevitable retaliation of their opponents. the next step is to test whether there are any loopholes in israel’s security precautions. and we all know that such places will always exist.

on the one hand, the terrorist attack caused great panic and casualties in lebanon, and on the other hand, it also forced the israelis to live in fear, not to mention that it also created a huge shadow for the whole world. it can really be said that "all losses" are the only winners, and perhaps netanyahu and his group.

israel's use of the supply chain to carry out this attack is not a particularly "high-tech" operation. in fact, it is more of a traditional intelligence sabotage operation, similar to the americans "adding fuel" to the vietnamese ammunition boxes found on the ho chi minh trail, putting in some bullets that would cause the barrel to explode if fired. however, times have changed. in this era of global supply chains and the popularization of micro-electromechanical devices, their methods are more fancy than before.

but as analyzed above, even if they adopt such despicable means, due to the comparison of military strength between israel and hezbollah, they still cannot achieve the goal of "eradicating" hezbollah, let alone eradicating the plo.

the imperialists have been trying to use technological means to deal with guerrilla warfare for more than a hundred years, but have not succeeded so far, because the strength of people's war and guerrilla warfare lies in the fact that they can also be self-upgraded. relying solely on technological advantages to achieve terrorist rule is a dream that the imperialists will never wake up from.

for a major country, china has attached great importance to keeping its own rice bowl in its own hands in the past two decades. the revelation of israel's action is that we should pay more attention to supply chain security than ever before. although it is impossible to eliminate all foreign products and parts in the contemporary world, security assessments of each link in the supply chain and inspections of imported products are still the key to preventing similar attacks.

on the other hand, supply chain security is an area where it is difficult to guarantee absolute security. in this area, making opponents fearful is currently the most effective means. this is true for both network security and supply chain security. offense is the best defense.

unfortunately, from today on, we can no longer guarantee the absolute safety of any product that involves a complex supply chain. we can only try to make it so that potential enemies do not dare to guarantee absolute safety. nuclear deterrence has brought decades of peace to the world. can today's mutual deterrence in supply chains and information networks bring the same lasting peace to the world? this may depend on whether israel can learn enough lessons from its perverse actions this time.

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