A wireless device used by Hezbollah fighters, health workers and administrative staff exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday, killing 12 people and wounding around 2,800, according to official figures.
The national blast was the culmination of a growing number of attacks on Hezbollah targets blamed on or claimed by Israel – including a July airstrike that killed senior military commander Fuad Shukr in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
The fence blast, described by a source close to Hezbollah as a “major explosion”, came hours after Israel said it was expanding its Gaza war aims to include fighting Hezbollah on its northern border.
Hezbollah blamed the attack on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in Tuesday’s blast.
– Parallel network –
Hezbollah began trading near daily with Israel in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war. which has been carrying out targeted airstrikes against its fighters for months. Tuesday’s explosion hit a batch of newly imported fences, a security source told AFP on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Hezbollah is avoiding using the Lebanese state telecommunications network because it has been violated by Israel, security sources said.
The fence is used “to invite fighters to the front line, to inform administrative officials or health personnel when needed, but also to warn of Israeli drones flying above,” he said.
Military analyst Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese general, downplayed the importance of the fence, as Hezbollah “has other means of secret communication”.
It consists of an “internal telecommunications network” that runs parallel to Lebanon’s public land lines and has been used for years by commanders and the rank and file alike.
But a security source said the group “suspects that part of this network may have been infiltrated by Israel in the south”.
Analysts say Hezbollah faces a huge task in restoring confidence in its communications security.
“This is a clear violation of technology and security,” said Amal Saad, a Hezbollah researcher and lecturer at England’s Cardiff University.
Hezbollah “has to find a way to fight this,” he said, but “it’s not easy to find another very primitive way that Israel can’t rig. You can rig anything.”
Heiko Wimmen, director of the International Crisis Group (ICG) project for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, told AFP Hezbollah “now has to evaluate its communication system, until now it can still rely on the remaining fences … an alternative to that”.
– Loss of personnel –
The fence-blasting deaths add to Hezbollah’s losses in exchanges of fire with Israel, which have totaled 414 since October.
“A lot of people were killed, we are probably talking about hundreds of people who … will not be able to fill the role that they have in the party. Of course, this is very disturbing,” said Wimmen.
Jaber said the casualties were only a fraction of Hezbollah’s fighting forces, with no political figures injured in the blast.
“We are talking about almost 3,000 wounded when the party has 50,000 fighters,” he said.
But the son of Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar was killed, while the son of lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah and Hezbollah security chief Wafic Safa were wounded.
A senior commander in the south was wounded and Hezbollah has yet to hear from several frontline fighters whose fences were blown up, security sources said.
Experts agree that the attack will have an impact on the way Hezbollah conducts operations.
“In any war secure communication is key. If the enemy can break through the communication, you are in deep trouble,” said Wimmen.
“In terms of how this will affect Hezbollah’s ability to wage war, obviously this will have an impact,” Saad said, adding: “Obviously it will have an impact on the military calculus”.
