Mossad blew up Hezbollah’s communication devices

September 20, 2024

“The most significant pre-emptive strike in modern history, similar to Israel’s attack on the Egyptian Air Force before the Six-Day War.”(Faisal al-Qassem, Al Jazeera)

At least 32 people were killed and over 3,000 others were wounded after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by the terrorist group Hezbollah were detonated almost simultaneously in an attack in Lebanon and Syria on Sept. 17.-18 . The death toll may still rise, as around 300 patients are in critical condition, with some suffering from facial injuries and brain bleeding.

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One theory presented on Facebook, credit: Member: 71

Most of the injuries are said to have been to the face and hands, and the pagers are said to beep moments before the explosion to encourage the wearers to grab and hold them. Both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel for the explosions. The Israeli government has not commented on the case. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also injured when his pager exploded and lost an eye.

According to a senior Lebanese security source, Mossad planted the explosives in 5,000 pagers that were brought into Lebanon months ago. Taiwan’s Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, but that another Budapest-based company manufactured them. According to a statement released by Gold Apollo on Wednesday, the AR-924 search devices used by Hezbollah militants were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in the Hungarian capital, it is assumed that company mentioned was owned by Mossad and devices were manufactured in an other cover firm in Bulgaria.

One theory is that about 9 grams of a liquid explosive, nitroparaffin, had been placed in the search devices. which was placed in such a way that the shrapnel effect caused by the explosive – from the parts of the pager itself – would be as damaging as possible.

According to unconfirmed reports, Israel had planned to use explosive seeker devices as the opening strike of a planned ground attack with the terrorist group to damage the logistics/chain of command. The attack was brought forward because it was suspected that the project would be revealed in the next few days. Hezbollah uses a network of pagers to summon a large number of them quickly at the push of a button. The network was believed to have many advantages – pagers are small and considered relatively secure in terms of data security, especially since they are not dependent on mobile phone networks.

Possibly Mossad’s Attack on Hezbollah is particularly successful because of its multiple effects: In addition to being physical in terms of injured and killed operatives, it is also intelligence-operational, in terms of how the organization managed to infiltrate Hezbollah’s operations and equipment supply chain, and also psychological, in terms of counter-intelligence against Hezbollah – and the failure of security services to the spread of humiliation on social media.

In a second wave of wireless communications device explosions in Lebanon, a day after the first wave in which pagers used by Hezbollah were simultaneously detonated. This time, radio phones used by the Radwa special forces of the armed Hezbollah organization exploded in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon.

The attacks came as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “new phase in the war” and as an Israeli army division was moved north of Gaza for a long-prepared ground operation.

The detonated walkie-talkies are reportedly IC-V82 radios manufactured by the Japanese company ICOM. However, the IC-V82 is a discontinued model, and ICOM has issued a warning about detecting fakes. In the warning leaflet, the company warned that these products have not been manufactured for a long time and said that there is a risk of battery explosion in these fake models.

Hezbollah bought the walkie-talkies five months ago – around the same time as the pagers. Israel’s intelligence services had earned thousands of walkie-talkies before supplying them to Hezbollah as part of the group’s wartime emergency communications system.

The target of the radiotelephone attack was Hezbollah’s elite unit Radwan. Radwan carries out special operations for Hezbollah and its strength is about 2,500 fighters. The unit’s primary mission is to infiltrate Israeli territory and capture civilian communities in the Galilee region. Radwa’s commandos operate in small groups and, according to Hezbollah, carry out ambushes, assassinations or operations that require infiltration deep into Israel. Radwan uses highly mobile units as means of transportation: motorcycles, ATVs and light all-terrain vehicles equipped with Russian-made Kornet ATGMs (anti-tank missiles).

Despite UN Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, Radwan forces are still stationed on the Blue Line – a border monitored by UN peacekeepers – conducting surveillance and intelligence gathering in northern Israel.

According to Israeli reports, Jerusalem believes the death toll in both attacks is higher than reported. Crucially, the explosions caused “significant damage” to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit, as most of its leadership is out of action.  

According to an unconfirmed internal document leaked from Hezbollah’s military intelligence, Hezbollah suffered the following losses in the explosions of the communication devices (HOX: there is there is no guarantee about authentcity):

• 879 people killed in explosions so far
• Of the dead, 131 were Iranians and 79 were Yemenis, the rest were Lebanese
• 291 of the dead were officers
• In the explosions, 491 were completely blinded and 602 were seriously injured
• 905 completely lost their genitalia and 1735 suffered serious damage (the search device was generally kept in a belt pouch.

Following picture from IDF shows serious losses in Hezbollah senior leaderchip:

After the blasts on the communication devices, Hezbollah now has thousands of disabled leaders and fighters and hospitals are full of wounded. Hezbollah’s ability to wage war has also decreased due to the fact that it cannot rely on its means of communication. Israel now has a good opportunity to clear Hizbullah from the security zone being formed in Lebanon between the Litani River and the border. In the future, the zone in question can be controlled by the forces of the Lebanese army with the support of the UN.

Sources include  TimesOfIsrael , JerusalemPost , BICOM , NewArab

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The article first appeared in the online publication Ariel-Israelista Suomeksi

Forgotten Court Rule: Israel Is The Legal Occupant Of Judea And Samaria

ISRAELI so-called settlements in West Bank – Judea and Samaria – are a complex issue. As a rule the news and newscasts claim that Israeli construction activities beyond 1967 line will destroy the Two-State idea. During last five decades there has been a continuous flow of statements from sc. international community that West Bank settlements are against sc. International Law.

But besides statements there is actually one trial – which escaped the media’s awareness – and which ruled the opposite: the 3^rd  Chamber of the Court of Appeal of Versailles declared in 2013 that Israel is the legal occupant of Judea and Samaria.

 

New level of West Bank construction

World Israel News reports that Israel announced on Tuesday 31^st Jan. 2017 the construction of 3,000 housing units in Judea and Samaria. This announcement, made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman, follows last week’s statement regarding the construction of 2,500 housing units in various locations in Judea and Samaria and the municipality of Jerusalem’s approval of the construction of 566 new homes in the city. The back-to-back announcements of a total of 6,000 new housing units in Judea and Samaria within a single week is almost unprecedented. The statement comes as 42 Israeli families in the community of Amona in Samaria are being removed from their homes because it was allegedly built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

For example the New York Times was using distorted facts on issue as follows: Israel approved 3,000 more housing units in the occupied West Bank late Tuesday, the largest number in a wave of new construction plans that defy the international community and that open a forceful phase in the country’s expansion into land the Palestinians claim for a future state. However to build housing units both within existing settlements and in existing Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, is not an expansion as the area of land for settlements is not expanding even if the number of houses and Jews living in them is increasing.

On 6^th Feb. 2017 the Israeli Knesset passed the controversial Regulation Law by 60 votes to 52. The Regulation Law retroactively gives residents of up to 4,000 housing units in West Bank settlements the right to live in their homes which were built – some accidentally – on private Palestinian land, in return providing the landowner with an annual usage payment of 125 per cent of the land’s rental value. However the Law might be overturned by the Supreme Court. (Source: BICOM , more in BICOM briefing: Download PDF)

 

Israel as legal occupant of the West Bank

Israel’s claim in West bank is based e.g. on the following earlier acts of International Law: The Jan Smuts Resolution of January 30, 1919, Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, including the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919, The legal title of the Jewish People to the mandated territory of Palestine in all of its historical parts was first recognized on April 24, 1920 when the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council (Britain, France, Italy and Japan), meeting in San Remo, Italy, converted the 1917 ‘Balfour Declaration’ into a binding legal document. This was confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres and Lausanne. All these recognized the historical connection of the Jewish People with the Land of Israel.

Sure local Arabs have also historical connections between Mediterranean and Jordan river but they have already received their lands under the Mandate system as (Trans-)Jordania was separated from Palestine during the British Mandate. So Jordan is the Arab Muslim state (kingdom) on 77% of old Palestine made legal 1946-League of Nations. They wanted more and made a war and annexed West bank 1950 which then was reclaimed by Israel 1967. According negotiated Oslo agreements (1995) for administration of West bank there are three areas C=Israel state, B=shared by Israel and Palestinian authority (PA) and A=PLO/PA/Fatah but Jerusalem is not Jordans or anyone elses.

Israel made peace treaty with Jordan – occupant of the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 – in 1994 and Jordan does not have any territorial claims in West Bank.

A trial which escaped the media’s awareness

In a historical trial, the 3rd Chamber of the Court of Appeal of Versailles declared in 2013 that Israel is the legal occupant of Judea and Samaria. As this groundbreaking ruling escaped the media’s awareness, a pro Israel activist – Jean-Patrick Grumberg – has worked to bring this “old news” to light. “I decided to put to work my years of Law Studies in France, and I meticulously analyzed the Court ruling,” Jean-Patrick Grumberg wrote and continued

To make sure I did not overestimate my legal abilities and that I wasn’t over optimistic – as usual-, I submitted my analysis and the Court papers to one of the most prominent French lawyer, Gilles-William Goldnadel, President of Lawyers without borders, to receive his legal opinion. He indeed validated my finding. Then I decided to translate it to English, and it will soon be submitted to Benjamin Netanyahu thru a mutual friend.

The main source of following description is the article in Dreuz.info –  Israël est l’occupant légal de la Cisjordanie, dit la Cour d’appel de Versailles , Publié par Jean-Patrick Grumberg le 25 décembre 2016 – with help of the report by United with Israel about the case.

The story goes back to the ’90s, when Israel began work for for the construction of the Jerusalem light rail. The tender was won by French companies Veolia and Alstom. The light rail was completed in 2011, and it crosses Jerusalem all the way through the city. Following this, the PLO/ the Palestinian Authority and Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS), filed a complaint with the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Versailles France, against Alstom and Veolia, because according to PLO, the construction of the tram was illegal since the United Nations (UN0, the European Union (EU) and other governments consider Israel’s presence there illegal. The Court of Appeal of Versailles ruled that Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is unequivocally legal under international law, dismissing a suit brought by the Palestinian Authority (PA) against Jerusalem’s light rail built by French companies Alstom and Veolia. To rule on the suit, the Court of Appeals had to determine the legal rights of Palestinians and Israelis in the region. Their conclusion was that the Palestinians have no right – in the international legal sense – to the region, unlike Israel, who is legitimately entitled to all land beyond the 67 line.

It is said that the court decision is only marginally significant for a debate about the legality of Israel’s actions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as it’s only talking about transport infrastructure, not e.g. about settlements. However in trial the PLO, explaining that the occupation is illegal, claimed that Israel is violating: Articles 49-6 and 53 of the Geneva Convention, Articles 23, 27 and 46 of the Regulations annexed to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907, Article 4 of the Hague Convention of 14 May 1954. Article 27 of the Hague Regulations of 1907, Article 5 of the Convention IX of the 1907 Hague. and Article 53 of Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions.

So in order to rule whether the light rail’s construction was legal or not, the court had to review the texts of international law and examine international treaties in order to establish the respective legal rights of the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The Versailles Court of Appeal rejected all the Palestinian arguments. Referring to the texts on which the PLO claim is based, the Court of Appeal considers that Israel is entitled to ensure order and public life in the region, and therefore Israel has the right to build a light rail, infrastructure and dwellings. All the international instruments put forward by the PLO were acts signed between states, and the obligations or prohibitions contained therein are relevant to states. Neither the PA nor the PLO are states, and therefore, none of these legal documents apply to them.

The Court of Appeal therefore sentenced the PLO and Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS), who was co-appellant, to pay 30,000 euros ($32,000) to Alstom, 30,000 euros to Alstom Transport and 30,000 euros to Veolia Transport. Neither the PLO nor the Palestinian Authority nor the AFPS appealed to the Supreme Court, and therefore the judgment became final. This is the first time that a Court has legally destroyed all Palestinian legal claim that Israel’s occupation is illegal.

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Article first appeared in Conflicts By Ari Rusila – site