Lebanon: man being treated for injuries when hand-held device exploded, September 20, 2024. Photo: AP
On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 17, thousands of digital pagers across Lebanon suddenly began ringing—with chimes, buzzes, melodies—as if a message was coming in. Seconds later they exploded, in markets, homes, cars and hospitals. Many looking for a message lost eyes, or were horribly disfigured. Exploding pagers on belts or in pockets killed or maimed.
Nine-year-old Fatima Abdullah had just come home from school when her father’s pager started beeping. She was taking it to him when it exploded, ripping her face apart, killing her and splattering blood across the room.
Hospitals were flooded with victims with gruesome wounds—puncture wounds on their faces, amputated limbs, open abdomens, ruptured eyeballs, and fractured bones. One doctor said he’d never seen wounds like this.
This wasn’t some pager malfunction or breakdown of Lebanon’s telecommunications system. It was a deliberate terrorist attack by the state of Israel that instantly murdered 12 people and wounded at least 3,000, many of them critically. Israel had secretly set up an electronics company, booby-trapped its pagers, and then sold them to Lebanon’s Hezbollah organization, an Islamic fundamentalist organization backed by Iran, as well as to others in Lebanon.1 (See sidebar for background on Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah.)
When Israel detonated these pagers, they weren’t being used by combatants on the battlefield. They were being carried by people shopping, at work, or in their homes with their families and children. Israel had deliberately turned these everyday civilian items into indiscriminate weapons of murder and terror. (Many Lebanese are now terrified that any handheld electronic device could be a time bomb.)
Attacks Continue and Escalate in “New Phase” of Israel’s War of Aggression
Tuesday’s massive attack on the Lebanese people wasn’t just another Israeli war crime, it was also a very serious and dangerous escalation of Israel’s ongoing clash with Hezbollah which could lead to a devastating all-out war, one which could lead to a wider war across the Middle East.
On Wednesday, September 18, two-way radios (walkie-talkies), and some mobile phones suddenly started exploding like pagers had the day before. Some blew up during a funeral for a child murdered by Israel the day before. At least 25 more were killed and over 600 others wounded. Some of the devices seemed designed to set off larger fires, and fires broke out in over 71 homes and stores and at least 18 cars and motorcycles.
Then beginning Thursday, Israel again escalated, launching its most intense bombing campaign of the year against Lebanon. Israel carried out hundreds of strikes on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Both military and civilian targets were struck. Entire apartment buildings were flattened, and at least two top Hezbollah officials were assassinated. Friday’s strikes alone killed some 45 people, including three children, and wounded at least 68 more.
Israel is warning that its war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon is entering a new, more dangerous phase, focused on Hezbollah in the north. This would heap horror upon horror for the already-suffering people of Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s leaders have vowed revenge for these latest attacks, and may feel compelled to act. And should Hezbollah counter-attack, or Israel further escalate its assault on Lebanon, Hezbollah’s allies in Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen may also feel compelled to join the fight, which in turn could draw the U.S. directly into the battle.2 All this has unpredictable and potentially catastrophic implications for millions of people across the Middle East.
No Condemnation from U.S. Rulers of Israeli Terrorism and Dangerous Escalation
The U.S. rulers claim they didn’t know about or have anything to do with Israel’s terrorist pager attack. But whether they knew about it or not, or supported it or not, they have not condemned Israel’s attack or labeled it terrorism, just as they’ve refused to condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza or call it what it is, genocide.
The U.S. has not wavered in funneling billions in arms to Israel—last month Biden okayed $20 billion more, including advanced air-to-air missiles and fighter jets. As the genocide was continuing ever more savagely in Gaza and pagers were exploding across Lebanon, Kamala Harris reaffirmed her backing: “I support Israel’s ability to defend itself.”
America’s rulers are doing this because Israel is their armed bastion and attack dog that is ready to lash out at any who threaten U.S. imperialist domination of the region and the world.
The U.S. may (or may not) have tactical differences with Israel about some issues, but dominating the Middle East is crucial to American functioning, stability and global power.
Right now, the U.S. imperialists are in a very sharp battle to maintain their stranglehold on this region. They face challenges from Iran and its allies in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, as well as global rivals like Russia and China who are seeking to influence the situation in different ways while they push out in other areas that the U.S. seeks to dominate. In this overall struggle for world domination—a struggle which has intensely escalated under Biden and which carries with it the grave danger of nuclear war—Israel is more crucial for the U.S. than ever.
In this situation, the words of the revolutionary leader and author of the new communism Bob Avakian have even more life-and-death urgency:
We, the people of the world, can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that we do not have to live this way.
Decades of Israeli Aggression Against Lebanon, and Israel’s Current Battle with Hezbollah
Since its founding in 1948, Israel has repeatedly carried out criminal wars of aggression against Lebanon. These wars have been part and parcel of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people, as well as striking at any forces in the region which support the Palestinians or challenge Israeli or U.S. domination.
In 1948, among the 700,000 Palestinians that Israel forcibly expelled from their lands were over 100,000 Palestinians driven into Lebanon. Today there are some 270,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, living mainly in refugee camps.
Israel has waged wars against different political forces in Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1996, and 2006. It occupied southern Lebanon from 1978 until 2000. These wars have led to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese casualties and horrific devastation of Lebanese society. Israel has been backed by the U.S. in all these wars.
Hezbollah is an Islamic fundamentalist organization, based mainly among Lebanon’s Shia Muslim population. It was formed in 1982 as a militia resisting Israeli occupation and is closely aligned with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hezbollah is a reactionary organization supporting oppressive relations, in particular patriarchy. It has grown into the dominant political and military force in Lebanon, which also has large Christian and Sunni Muslim populations.
On October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocide in Gaza (following Hamas’s reactionary attack, including against civilians, in Israel) Hezbollah began firing rockets at targets in northern Israel. It claims it will continue to do as long as Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza continues.
Israel in turn has been bombing targets in Lebanon, including deliberate attacks on journalists, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and widespread use of white phosphorus, whose use against people is banned internationally. To date, this military clash has been relatively restrained, but now Israel’s escalation may be breaking that pattern and pushing the conflict in a much more dangerous direction.