The hospitals here in Lebanon after the “pagers” bombings looked similar to their condition after the Beirut port explosion on August 4, 2020. It is difficult not to make a comparison, despite the difference in circumstances and the type of event. Panic, loss, astonishment, crowding, bloody bodies, severed limbs, black sadness, the call for blood donations, crowded operating rooms, overwhelming anger, and a feeling of betrayal.
Within one minute, Israel was able to detonate nearly 3,000 pagers. This is a serious matter, and the result is a real massacre. Hezbollah fighters were not the only ones injured, there were paramedics, women and children. We saw a device explode in a supermarket, another in the street, and others in homes and cars.
What Israel aimed for was to kill as many people as possible, regardless of their status or the purpose of their death. Over the course of two days, 32 people have been killed so far, including a number of children. Nearly 3,000 were seriously injured, more than 200 of whom are in critical condition. That is, if you put aside the urban destruction caused by the Beirut port explosion, after a while you will find a number of injured and dead, not far from that horrific event that we experienced 4 years ago, and the time is always in the afternoon and before sunset.
What happened as a result of this heinous act? And is it a technological victory?
In practice, the displaced will not return to northern Israel (and this is Israel's major problem on the border with Lebanon), and Hezbollah will not stop fighting, and will replace their devices with others, as it is impossible for planners not to have alternatives. Moreover, Israel's replacement of imported pagers, at some point, in the factory or during shipment, with others equipped with small explosives, is not difficult for those who have the will to kill. But it must either submit to the minimum conditions of war, or transcend all taboos, by destroying all lines and standards, and killing whomever it wants whenever it wants.
The strongest aspect for those who have extensive intelligence arms is not replacing the devices before they reach their owners, nor finding the technological means to detonate them at the same time, but rather stopping at the idea itself, which aims to kill thousands of people at the same time, regardless of their status, age, or job.
In doing so, Israel is urging its enemies to change the compass of their maps, and plan to confront it, with malice and deceit, instead of direct military action. This will not be in its interest. Since the October 7, 2023 plot alone has not yet emerged, what can they do if they are surrounded by traps?
A year after the war on Gaza, Israel has not achieved anything, according to the French-Arab Jewish historian Georges Bensoussan. It has not been able to release the hostages, eliminate Hamas, or return 100,000 displaced persons from the north to their homes. "On the contrary, it has fallen into Hamas's trap, and releasing the prisoners has become a political and military defeat, and not releasing them has become a moral defeat."
Israeli analysts believe that the withdrawal from southern Lebanon in the year 2000 is what opened the gates of hell for them, and made their enemies feel strong and powerful, considering that one or two dead per day is less costly than what they have reached.
A sense of regret for many measures, except for self-accountability for wasting all opportunities for peace, and instead it has adopted killing as a language, blood as a means of deterrence, and intimidation as a tool for survival, because Israel is betting on its strength by playing the role of the "bogeyman" in the region.
This reminded me of the Greek myth of the princess with the terrifying face, half human and half snake, whom Zeus loved and had children with. But his wife Hera, out of jealousy, forced this princess to kill all her children except one. She went mad, and she had the sound of a destructive torrent. She began sneaking into houses at nightfall, stealing children from their cradles and killing them, to ensure that other mothers would feel her pain as she stole their children and caused them grief and sorrow.
Israel insists, by rejecting any permanent or temporary solution to stop the massacres in Gaza, and reaching any agreement, and continuing to threaten the people of the West Bank and Lebanon, and angering its near and far neighbors, and finding the largest number of enemies for itself. At the end of this war, the total number of innocent dead will be a very large number, i.e. it will surpass "Dracula", who is said to have killed no more than 30 thousand.
