Hezbollah vows retaliation against Israel for deadly pager explosions

Christian Edwards, Adrienne Vogt, Aditi Sangal and Kathleen Magramo

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For most of the past year, cross-border skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah have been the daily background music to life in Lebanon.

But Tuesday’s exploding pagers attack represents a level of escalation that is perhaps even greater than the assassination of Fu’ad Shukr, the senior Hezbollah commander killed by an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in lateJuly.

Although Israel is refusing to comment on the explosions, Hezbollah has said it holds Israel “fully responsible for this criminal attack.” The Lebanese government has also blamed Israel for the attack.

In fact, this is just the latest in a series of blows to the militant group. After the assassination of Shukr, Hezbollah waited nearly four weeks to launch its response, firing some 300 rockets and drones at Israel in retaliation, the majority of which were shot down by Israeli air defenses.

Now, perhaps thousands of Hezbollah militants have been injured in the pager explosions—a major blow to the Iranian-backed group. The explosions underscore Hezbollah’s profound vulnerability to Israeli infiltration of its intelligence and communications networks.