Comment by gojomo
It looks like a trigger that can only be pulled once.
Thus, choice of the optimal time could be influenced by a lot of things:
- knowledge of other Hezbollah imminent action making comms disruption right now of great importance
- recognition that the vulnerability had been discovered and was about to be remediated
- via other "eyes on" prime targets, knowledge that just one or two top leaders were briefly in especially-vulnerable positions (like sleeping alongside their pagers)
- etc
And, there will be a "long tail" of damage to Hezbollah's usual communications practices & trust in devices/suppliers. Some marginal recruits may even be deterred from joining a battle against an opponent which can carry out this sort of attack – though of course, others may be emboldened.
> And, there will be a "long tail" of damage to Hezbollah's usual communications practices & trust in devices/suppliers.
It appears pager use was a solid choice. Even on full supply chain compromise the amount of explosives fitted couldn't kill even 1% of targets. A cellphone would be packed with much larger payloads able to kill much more people. Their failure was the lack of proper inspection before distribution.