After an extraordinary two-stage attack involving thousands of walkie-talkies and pagers–injuring thousands of people and killing at least 37–rocked Lebanon this week, countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, Taiwan and Japan have garnered attention over links to Israel’s declaration of a new phase of war in the Middle East. Alleged reports of home solar energy systems blowing up in Beirut considerably added to the frenzy. At the same time, evidence suggests how this was not an overnight operation but a meticulously planned decades-old supply-chain interdiction, using trading companies as fronts for Israeli intelligence to send Trojan horses Hezbullah’s way.
There’s no denying the political implications as missiles continue to be dropped from both sides. While humanitarian organisations plead for restraint, fears of a devastating regional conflict persist, especially in the wake of Friday’s airstrike that claimed Hezbullah’s top commander, Ibrahim Aqil. All this might serve as a painful wake-up call for Lebanon as a state whose sovereignty has become a non-affair in the eyes of the Israeli military busy violating international laws in its quest to change the existing balance of deterrence.
Still, the technical aspects of how Israel weaponised an object used by civilians are even more terrifying. Could it be that by executing this new type of terrorism, the Netanyahu administration has cautioned the entire world about how it could use its high-tech sabotage to kill and .