On September 17, 2024, thousands of explosives-rigged pagers carried by Hezbollah members across Lebanon blew up, maiming thousands of the militant group's operatives, as well as civilians.
A year after the unprecedented operation, the Iran-backed group still has not discovered how Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency managed to insert explosives into its pagers, Lebanese security sources told The National.
The sources also revealed that the security breaches in Hezbollah's network extend beyond its failure to detect explosives hidden inside the pagers and walkie-talkies used by the organisation.
The co-ordinated detonations, widely regarded as one of the largest-scale covert operations in modern history, mark the decline of the once-dominant regional militant group.
At the same time, Israel reportedly hacked into Hezbollah's missile systems. The hack temporarily prevented the group from launching weapons and crippled its defensive capabilities for the duration of the ensuing war, according to the sources.
“The Lebanese state hasn't worked on it. It hasn't investigated at all. It's all Hezbollah. But Hezbollah hasn't figured out yet,” said a Lebanese senior security official involved in the file.
Another security source added that for months after the pager attack, Hezbollah was unable to fire missiles, apparently because Israel had broken its launch codes.
“The Iranians arrived later and brought some kind of upgrades and restored some of the failed systems,” he said.
Back-to-back blasts
Mahdi Al Manaa, 34, was in south Lebanon when his pager exploded. “The pagers were a security operation that was perfect in its success,” he conceded.
The blast left him severely injured, his face scarred, and his left hand disfigured. He said the pagers were a key tool in how fighters – and others who carried them – worked and were guided on where and when to go.
A day after the pager detonations, as funerals were under way, Israel also set off rigged walkie-talkies carried by the group's members. Israel later confirmed it carried out both attacks. The simultaneous explosions represented an escalation in what was, until then, a contained conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
The back-to-back blasts killed at least 32 people and injured thousands.
“What we have been informed of through Hezbollah is that samples of those pagers had been scanned somehow before they were delivered, and they looked clean,” said the senior security official.
Hezbollah had adapted the pagers in an attempt to avoid electronic surveillance, but the very tools meant to shield them became a vulnerability.
Before Hezbollah could regroup, Israel followed with a sweeping and deadly offensive: killing Hezbollah's senior leadership, relentlessly pounding parts of Lebanon with air strikes, and finally, launching a ground invasion of the country's south.
“We already know that Hezbollah suspected the pagers were hacked when the batteries started lasting less and overheating,” the official said. The Mossad had brought the detonations forward, fearing Hezbollah's suspicions would expose the operation.
Hezbollah's investigation has so far cleared the group's operatives and affiliates of espionage, the source said.
“The middlemen weren't working for Israel's spy agencies, that's for sure. They were tricked. They wanted to get a good and fast deal, and Hezbollah paid the price.”
Two Hezbollah members injured in the operation spoke to The National, describing its toll.
Mr Al Manaa was on active deployment in south Lebanon when his pager exploded. He said that within the organisation, the contents of the investigation were known only to the leadership.
“The problem was in the security breach. We [Hezbollah] were exposed to a major security breach,” Mr Al Manaa said.
Continuous bombardment
Mr Al Manaa was severely wounded by the attacks, suffering injuries across his body. His left hand remains disfigured, and his face scarred. He says the pager attack split his face, with the strength of the explosion tearing his right eye from its socket.
“After the explosion, I was still conscious and I could still hear, but I couldn’t see because I was injured in my face. Within a few seconds, we realised that it was the pagers – which is something that I used every single day – that exploded.”
Mr Manaa continues to recover from his injuries a year on. He is now a locally elected official in the southern city of Tyre.
Shadi Al Ghoul, 29, a computer scientist who said he worked in the administrative side of Hezbollah’s organisation, was with his fiancé preparing their future home when his pager exploded.
“I felt the pager in my bag vibrate strangely. And its sound was very loud, not the normal sound. This got my attention, and I grabbed the pager,” said Mr Al Ghoul.
He saw an error message, and a message requesting him to push the up-down button, then OK. For the first few seconds, nothing happened.
“Before I had time to press again, the pager exploded on me,” he said.
Mr Al Ghoul, who has since married and obtained his master's degree in computer science, says his fiancé had walked away from him to talk to her mother just before the attack and was not injured.
“I came to understand that this was a big Israeli attack on us. I started asking what was happening, and they told me the pagers were exploding. I flashed back to my pager – the last thing I saw before the explosion.”
Mr Al Ghoul now uses his computer science skills to train others maimed by the pager attacks – those blinded or missing fingers – on how to use their phones and laptops despite their disability.
A year after the deadly detonations that marked Hezbollah's fall from the most powerful non-state actor in the region, members of the group are still targeted on a near-daily basis.
Despite a ceasefire declared in November of last year, Israel continues to bombard parts of Lebanon, in addition to maintaining an occupation of five military outposts inside Lebanese territory.
The goal, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding and to put pressure on the group to disarm nationwide.
But Mr Al Manaa and Mr Al Ghoul both said the pager attacks had only deepened their convictions.
“We'll rebuild,” Mr Al Manaa said. “You'll be surprised by how much we'll rebuild.”
Dhadak
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana
Stars: 3
UAE v Ireland
1st ODI, UAE win by 6 wickets
2nd ODI, January 12
3rd ODI, January 14
4th ODI, January 16
Gulf Under 19s final
Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B
Fixtures
Friday Leganes v Alaves, 10.15pm; Valencia v Las Palmas, 12.15am
Saturday Celta Vigo v Real Sociedad, 8.15pm; Girona v Atletico Madrid, 10.15pm; Sevilla v Espanyol, 12.15am
Sunday Athletic Bilbao v Getafe, 8.15am; Barcelona v Real Betis, 10.15pm; Deportivo v Real Madrid, 12.15am
Monday Levante v Villarreal, 10.15pm; Malaga v Eibar, midnight
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
The Disaster Artist
Director: James Franco
Starring: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogan
Four stars
Kathryn Hawkes of House of Hawkes on being a good guest (because we’ve all had bad ones)
- Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave.
- Offer to buy groceries, cook them a meal or take your hosts out for dinner.
- Help out around the house.
- Entertain yourself so that your hosts don’t feel that they constantly need to.
- Leave no trace of your stay – if you’ve borrowed a book, return it to where you found it.
- Offer to strip the bed before you go.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Retail gloom
Online grocer Ocado revealed retail sales fell 5.7 per cen in its first quarter as customers switched back to pre-pandemic shopping patterns.
It was a tough comparison from a year earlier, when the UK was in lockdown, but on a two-year basis its retail division, a joint venture with Marks&Spencer, rose 31.7 per cent over the quarter.
The group added that a 15 per cent drop in customer basket size offset an 11.6. per cent rise in the number of customer transactions.
Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans
Jasmin Mujanović, Hurst Publishers
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The struggle is on for active managers
David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.
The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.
Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.
Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.
Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.
At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn.
Muslim Council of Elders condemns terrorism on religious sites
The Muslim Council of Elders has strongly condemned the criminal attacks on religious sites in Britain.
It firmly rejected “acts of terrorism, which constitute a flagrant violation of the sanctity of houses of worship”.
“Attacking places of worship is a form of terrorism and extremism that threatens peace and stability within societies,” it said.
The council also warned against the rise of hate speech, racism, extremism and Islamophobia. It urged the international community to join efforts to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
Mobile phone packages comparison
AI traffic lights to ease congestion at seven points to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Street
The seven points are:
Shakhbout bin Sultan Street
Dhafeer Street
Hadbat Al Ghubainah Street (outbound)
Salama bint Butti Street
Al Dhafra Street
Rabdan Street
Umm Yifina Street exit (inbound)
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
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Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
One in nine do not have enough to eat
Created in 1961, the World Food Programme is pledged to fight hunger worldwide as well as providing emergency food assistance in a crisis.
One of the organisation’s goals is the Zero Hunger Pledge, adopted by the international community in 2015 as one of the 17 Sustainable Goals for Sustainable Development, to end world hunger by 2030.
The WFP, a branch of the United Nations, is funded by voluntary donations from governments, businesses and private donations.
Almost two thirds of its operations currently take place in conflict zones, where it is calculated that people are more than three times likely to suffer from malnutrition than in peaceful countries.
It is currently estimated that one in nine people globally do not have enough to eat.
On any one day, the WFP estimates that it has 5,000 lorries, 20 ships and 70 aircraft on the move.
Outside emergencies, the WFP provides school meals to up to 25 million children in 63 countries, while working with communities to improve nutrition. Where possible, it buys supplies from developing countries to cut down transport cost and boost local economies.
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
UAE tour of the Netherlands
UAE squad: Rohan Mustafa (captain), Shaiman Anwar, Ghulam Shabber, Mohammed Qasim, Rameez Shahzad, Mohammed Usman, Adnan Mufti, Chirag Suri, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Mohammed Naveed, Amjad Javed, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Fixtures: Monday, first 50-over match; Wednesday, second 50-over match; Thursday, third 50-over match
