Netanyahu admits Israel’s role in Lebanon pager attacks that killed nearly 40

In a first, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday admitted that Israel was behind the pager attack on the hideouts of Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah in September, killing nearly 40 terrorists and injuring over 3,000.

“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” Netanyahu’s spokesperson Omer Dostri told news agency AFP.

In a cabinet meeting on Sunday, November 10, Netanyahu also acknowledged that Israeli forces carried out a precision strike in Beirut, killing Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, after receiving direct orders from him. “The pager operation and the elimination of (Hassan) Nasrallah were carried out despite the opposition of senior officials in the defence establishment and those responsible for them in the political echelon,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying by The Times of Israel.

Between September 17 and 18 this year, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group, exploded, killing around 40 people and injuring over 3,000. According to sources, the pagers used by Hezbollah members, with no GPS capabilities, no microphones and cameras, were meant to avoid Israeli surveillance.

In the Israeli operation, the pagers detonated across Lebanon within a span of 30 minutes.

Lebanon said earlier this week that it had filed a complaint with the United Nations’ labour agency over deadly attacks, blaming Israel for raging an “egregious war against humanity, against technology, against work”.