Comment by cachvico
With a statement like that one wonders if Hezbollah leadership itself has been infiltrated.
With a statement like that one wonders if Hezbollah leadership itself has been infiltrated.
Not really: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-h...
They just didn't realize how real this particular plan was. It's quite likely Hamas is regularly bluffing similar attacks in many potentially-compromised channels. If they then see Israel react, they've received info about Israel's capabilities & tactics – and maybe even ways to misdirect Israeli forces with future feints. And any real plans may stay hidden amongst dozens/hundreds of other "false alarms".
Yes, but I believe the post to which I was replying used "the initial attack" that Israel "failed to see coming" to refer to Hamas' October 7th attack.
Hence my reference to Hamas' likely chaffing of Israel's intel, and Israel's false-alarm fatigue, before that "surprise" attack.
Of course Hezbollah likely uses similar tactics - but if as deeply pierced as this latest attack implies, they'd have to wonder if any comm successes they thought they had were just Israel leading them on. I doubt Hezbollah has surprised Israel recently!
Theoretically, pagers are simpler devices, meaning it would be much easier in principle to analyse both hardware and software to check for issues, unlike a mainstream phone OS which has a bigger software attack area and can have at least some zero day attacks known to a state level actor like Israel.
Although, if it really was explosive inside the pagers it seems Hezbollah didn't do this.
You can also find out what your target is using, find some exploits in it and publicize them, then offer a super good deal on an upgraded model.
Israel has an intelligence agency that's generally recognized to be quite competent. I'm sure it would have taken them approximately 5 minutes to learn from their many spies that a new form of communications is being used.