Thousands of Hezbollah pagers detonated across Lebanon and Syria 

What’s happened: At least nine Hezbollah members have been killed with thousands wounded after a near simultaneous detonation of hundreds of pagers used by the group in an attack which took place across Lebanon and Syria.

• The majority of injuries are said to have been to the face and the hands, with pagers reportedly beeping moments before detonation to encourage the carriers to pick up and hold them. 
• Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have both blamed Israel for the detonations. The Israeli government has not offered any comments on the incident.
• Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also reportedly injured when his pager detonated, losing an eye.
• The Biden administration claimed it was “not aware of this incident in advance” while the FCDO has urged “calm heads and de-escalation”. 
• According to reports, Hezbollah’s supply chain was compromised with small amounts of explosives being placed in the pagers before they were exported to Lebanon.
• According to a senior Lebanese security source speaking to Reuters, Mossad planted the explosives in 5000 devices which were imported to Lebanon months ago. While the pagers were from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, the company has said it did not manufacture the devices. Gold Apollo stressed that these devices were made by another company called BAC which has a licence to use the Gold Apollo brand, but gave no further details.
• Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate saying “the resistance will continue today, like any other day, its operations to support Gaza, its people and its resistance which is a separate path from the harsh punishment that the criminal enemy (Israel) should await in response to Tuesday's massacre”.
• The IDF has said there are no changes to the Home Front Command security guidelines in the immediate aftermath of the incident. The GPS signal around the Kirya in Tel Aviv (IDF HQ) currently remains unaffected (it is often jammed when attacks are believed to be imminent).

Context: The detonations closely follow reports that the Shin Bet foiled an attempted sophisticated Hezbollah attempt to assassinate an unnamed senior former Israeli security official, as well as the Israeli government reinforcing its willingness to expand military action in southern Lebanon.

• A former Israeli official tells Axios that Israel had planned to use the exploding pagers as an opening blow in an all-out war with the terror group, but had become concerned in recent days that the booby-trapped devices could be discovered. Al Monitor reported that two members of Hezbollah had recently raised concerns about the pagers. An unnamed US official has described the detonations as a “use it or lose it” moment, suggesting the plan was initiated now out of concern that it would imminently be uncovered and compromised. 
• Hezbollah uses a network of pagers in order to inform operatives and to call up a large number of them quickly with the press of a button. That network was thought to have had many advantages - pagers are small and considered to be relatively secure in terms of information security, especially as they are not dependent on cellular networks.
• The blow to Hezbollah is physical, in terms of its injured and killed operatives, intelligence-operational, in terms of how the organisation was successfully infiltrated and psychological, in terms of the humiliation of their failure being spread over social media. The confidence of its operatives will also be shaken in the short term. Although Hezbollah’s counter-intelligence and security has previously been compromised, these detonations mark perhaps its greatest breach in decades.
• It will also once again require Hezbollah to evaluate its internal organisational structure, something it has already done following the assassination of several senior commanders, with its Chief of Staff Fuad Shukr foremost among them. In the short term, Hezbollah will likely change its means and methods of communication, which may expose itself to its activities being tracked. 
• At the same time, this attack has not changed the strategic situation along Israel’s northern border, with 80,000 Israelis still unable to return to their homes.
• Combat operations continue in the Gaza Strip with four Israeli soldiers being killed in Rafah when they entered a booby trapped building. One of the deceased was Staff Sergeant Agam Naim, 20. A paramedic attached to the 401st Armoured Brigade’s 52 Battalion, she is the first female soldier to be killed in ground operations in the Gaza Strip since Operation Swords of Iron began.

Looking ahead: Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah is due to deliver a speech tomorrow afternoon, which will likely centre on the group’s response to the mass pager detonations.

• The Iraqi government and an Iran-backed Shia militia, Kataib Hezbollah, have both pledged to send support to Lebanon. The Iraqi government will deploy medical teams, while Kataib Hezbollah has said it will “put all our capabilities in the hands of the brothers in Lebanon…we are fully prepared to go with them to the end, and to send fighters, equipment and support, whether on the technical or logistical level”.