Israel's attacks a 'message' to Hezbollah of ability to 'inflict harm, create collective psychosis'
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00:00Our top story. Today, Israel says it has bombed Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, piling pressure
00:08on the militant group already reeling after explosions targeted its communication systems.
00:14Those attacks, striking pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and yesterday, killed 37 people
00:21and wounded over 3,000 others. The attacks have heightened fears of a full-blown conflict
00:28between Israel and Hezbollah. Yesterday, the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said
00:34the army's focus was moving from Gaza towards the northern border with Lebanon.
00:40Charlie James has the report.
00:43Southern Lebanon rocked by artillery strikes early Thursday morning. Israel's military
00:48says this footage shows attacks on Hezbollah infrastructure and weapons facilities. It's
00:54the latest operation contributing to spiraling tensions between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah
00:59militant group. This week, a mass attack targeting pagers and handheld radios used by Hezbollah
01:06operatives killed dozens of people and wounded thousands more. On Wednesday, these ICOM radios
01:13exploded across Lebanon's south. It was the country's deadliest day since cross-border
01:18attacks with Israel began nearly a year ago. Cell phone videos show smoke pouring out of
01:24buildings after device blasts, some occurring inside homes. One of the radio explosions
01:30happened at a funeral organized for three Hezbollah members and a child. They were killed
01:36Tuesday when thousands of the group's pagers exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon
01:42and Syria. Israeli officials have not commented on the blasts, but the nation's spy agency
01:48is widely believed to be responsible. And Wednesday, Israel's defense minister said
01:53the center of gravity is moving northward to the Israeli-Lebanon border.
01:58I believe that we're at the start of a new phase in the war. Operations are carried out
02:04by all the security organizations and our task is clear, ensuring the safe return of
02:10Israel's northern residents to their homes. The United Nations and Israel's allies are
02:15urging de-escalation, eager to avoid a wider Middle East war. We still don't want to see
02:20an escalation of any kind. We still believe that the best way to prevent escalation, to
02:26prevent another front from opening up in Lebanon, is through diplomacy. Hezbollah called these
02:30attacks the biggest security breach in the group's history, leaving it in disarray and
02:36putting pressure on its leader to exact revenge. Many of the 3,000 injured in Lebanon lost
02:44eyes and limbs and hospitals in the country are struggling to cope with the high number
02:50of complex surgeries. Our correspondents Serge Berbery and Rawad Taha visited one such hospital
02:57in Beirut. Here's their report. In this footage, captured by surveillance
03:03cameras, medical staff prepare to receive the first wounded. The emergency response
03:08plan has just been activated. Yesterday around 4pm, we received a call from
03:15the Ministry of Health informing us of the imminent arrival of a large number of patients
03:20following the explosions in Lebanon. The entire staff, from nurses to the medical team and
03:25administration showed exemplary professionalism and great responsibility. Within minutes,
03:31they were all at the hospital, ready to handle the situation. We had to manage not only the
03:36patients but also their families, who were deeply affected.
03:45At the entrance to the intensive care unit, devastated families still in shock.
03:52This man has just undergone facial surgery.
04:00This patient was admitted yesterday with extremely severe eye injuries.
04:05He lost both of his eyes and consequently his sight.
04:13Other patients had injuries to their faces and hands.
04:16We did everything in our power to treat them.
04:24About a hundred injured were admitted to this hospital in the northeastern suburbs of Beirut.
04:29Speaking to France 24, the hospital's director praised the swift response of his teams.
04:35Fortunately, the French hospital of the Levant has several operating rooms,
04:45a total of a dozen. We performed surgeries throughout the night and they are still
04:49ongoing. As the hospital director, I coordinated the efforts, ensuring everything ran smoothly.
04:56The work was managed remarkably well.
04:58Around 20 injured patients remain hospitalised at this facility,
05:06where the emergency plan is expected to stay in effect for several more days.
05:29We are 24 hours on now from the second round of those explosions in Lebanon.
05:37How big a blow, psychologically and practically, do you think this week has been for Hezbollah?
05:45So maybe on the first practical aspect of the operation, this is a spectacular operation that
05:51I think Hezbollah did not expect, that most of the allies of this movement did not expect,
05:56including of course Iran. And the clear objective, I think, was to send a message,
06:02the message that Israel, that has been described as weakened, especially regarding intelligence
06:09following the 7th of October, is not weakened at all and can inflict major harm and damage
06:16on this movement. And more broadly, to come to the psychological dimension, to inflict shock
06:24and to create a sense of terror, a collective psychosis among the Lebanese population. So this
06:29is quite a major blow, I think, to Hezbollah, which beyond its rhetoric will have to
06:36deal with this new reality.
06:38Indeed. And the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, is to speak this afternoon.
06:44What do you think his message will be and what kind of tone do you think he will strike today?
06:49I think we won't see much difference from what Nasrallah stated in the past. We'll probably hear
06:56a very vengeful reaction, a promise of retribution, which has been the common line, both on Hezbollah's
07:05side but also on the Israeli side. At the same time, I don't think we will see any major attack
07:10launched by the movement. Also because Hezbollah, through these attacks and because of the number
07:16of civilians wounded or killed in these attacks, is now under the growing popular pressure
07:26within Lebanon, which is a failed state, which is a state going through a major
07:31societal economic crisis. So Hezbollah cannot allow itself to go into a full-blown war with
07:37Israel, which I don't think, by the way, is the objective of Israel, despite what you have,
07:44and other Israeli officials have declared. That's interesting. Why do you think that isn't the
07:48objective then of Israel? Because as we played in that report, the Israeli Defence Minister,
07:54Yoav Galant, you just mentioned him saying the focus is turning away from Gaza towards Lebanon.
08:00We've had these unprecedented attacks this week targeting Hezbollah. There are many analysts who
08:06say, look, this is the closest the region has been in at least a year to a full-blown war.
08:12Why do you think otherwise? I think otherwise because Yoav Galant is a contested figure within
08:19the security and military apparatus in Israel. Not everybody agrees that there is a shift,
08:25that the focus has shifted towards Lebanon. There is a low intensity confrontation still on the
08:35northern front, which is by no means comparable with what's going on in Gaza. And let's not forget
08:41that the Israeli society, nearly one year after the beginning of this new wave of violence,
08:47is deeply divided. There is no plan for the afterward in Gaza, which is creating a lot of
08:54tensions, not only among the Israeli political class, but among the population. So I don't think
09:01that Yoav Galant can act on his own will. There are a lot of different opinions about what should
09:09be done. And Gaza will certainly remain the major epicentre, I think, of what's going on,
09:15with, of course, all the regional consequences that we are seeing through what happened in Lebanon.
09:20And just a final question for you. What do you think countries like the United States,
09:24but also France, should be doing now to try and de-escalate
09:30these tensions that look to be extremely high indeed?
09:35Well, I think indeed, in general terms, diplomacy is the only key to trying to not, we won't reach
09:44peace anytime soon, but to try to de-escalate, indeed, the ongoing tensions. The problem is that
09:51we've seen no progress on this front. So I don't know which stronger measures could be taken
09:57by the US, by the Europeans, to increase the pressure on both Israel and, of course,
10:04movements like Hamas and Hezbollah for the moment. Unfortunately, I've not seen much progress.
10:11I have the feeling that the actors are acting, these players, regional players,
10:17are acting in a very irrational way, which has been out of control.
10:22Maryam Benrad, good to talk to you today. Thanks very much.
10:27Now, among the key questions being asked today is when and how were those Hezbollah communication
10:34devices tampered with? Our science and tech editor, Julia Seager, has been looking into that.
10:39She's with me now. Julia, hello. Let's start, first of all, with what we know about the
10:44initial attacks on the pages.
10:46So the information I'm about to share with you actually comes primarily from an investigation
10:51by the New York Times. They're relying on the testimonies of 12 current and former
10:55Israeli and American intelligence services officials who were briefed on the attack and
11:01who all talk about a complex but also a long-term operation. Now, they all say that Israel is indeed
11:08behind this unprecedented attack. And as we've heard, this is an information that has neither
11:13been confirmed or denied by Israel. But there is much evidence that points to Israel because of
11:17the scope, because of the precision of the attack. It requires significant resources. Indeed, we know
11:23that Israeli operatives are the best in the world in terms of intelligence, surveillance, but also
11:27cybersecurity. The modus operandi also points to them, and we'll get back to that in just a minute.
11:32But initially, we all thought the explosive had been perhaps implanted in the pagers after the
11:39construction. So we all thought, well, how did that happen? Did they infiltrate a production line?
11:44Were they able to perhaps intercept packages? How did they get through the security checkpoints?
11:49So the New York Times seemed to actually be providing more details here. And they say,
11:53actually, they didn't add the explosive to the pagers. They didn't tamper the devices, if you
12:00will. They created them. They manufactured them. Now, what this means is if they controlled the
12:04manufacturing line, it means that they have a hand on the hardware, but also on the software.
12:08And that answers a lot of questions. Right. But to understand this story in a bit more detail,
12:12we need to go back a couple of years, don't we? Exactly. So, you know, Iran-backed groups such
12:16as Hezbollah have been for a long time now vulnerable to this technological superiority
12:22of Israel. For example, in 2020, they took out Iran's top nuclear scientist using an AI-assisted
12:28robot that was also controlled remotely via satellite. That's how sophisticated the attack was.
12:34They also used a lot of cyber attacks to slow down the Iranian nuclear program. And they've
12:38also taken out other people using cell phones. And so all of this information, all of these incidents
12:44led to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to become very much distrustful and paranoid.
12:50And so he told everybody to get rid of their cell phones, get rid of all the apps,
12:54even if they were encrypted end to end. And he said, well, pretty much if Israel is going to
12:59choose high tech, we're going to go low tech with frugal innovation, because that way it's not
13:04connected to the network. It's harder to hack because there are less entry points. And he even
13:09said so publicly in a public address on TV. And so you may think this is maybe the moment where
13:14intelligence services started that program. And actually, the New York Times investigation says,
13:19no, they actually started before that. Several months before that, they devised a strategy
13:23to create a shell company posing as an international pager manufacturer. And this
13:28is what we think BAC Consulting may be, a shell company based in Hungary that was able to create a
13:34contract to produce devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. So they may
13:40have, for instance, taken care of that order, which was in their region. So what this actually
13:44means is that the devices could have also been created in any other country, even in Israel.
13:49Now, what we're told also is that there was two separate manufacturing lines. They had
13:54normal clients for whom they created normal pagers, and another manufacturing line where
14:00they created the pagers for Hezbollah members, where they were able to lace the explosive in
14:06the circuit board. And the story gets even more confusing at that point, though, doesn't it,
14:11Julia? Because BAC is saying, actually, we don't have a production line. And that actually may be
14:15true. They may not have a production line. And there may be several shell companies to try to
14:20conceal as much as possible the true identity of the manufacturer. And so let's talk about the
14:25walkie-talkies then that exploded yesterday. Does it seem that the same mechanism was used with
14:30those that were used with the pagers? It could indeed. Now, the model that was identified is
14:34the IC-V82 two-way radio, bearing the brand of the Japanese company ICOM. It just bears the brand,
14:39but we don't know if it was manufactured by them. What's interesting is that the CEO actually had
14:43the same reaction as Gold Apollo. They said, well, we haven't manufactured this in the last 10 years,
14:48so this could be a fake. This could be a counterfeit version. So we're going to have to see
14:52how this unfolds, but there's going to have to be an investigation when it comes to
14:56these shell companies. But what's interesting is why was Israel, if it is Israel indeed,
15:00why were they able to carry out this attack? I think it's because on one hand,
15:05they do control high-tech technology, but at the same time, they're still very much entrenched on
15:10the ground collecting information as well. And they have both sides. And I think in this attack,
15:15that's what we're seeing. There's high-tech, but there's also information on the ground and
15:20infiltration. Really interesting. Thank you very much, Julia Seager, for us there.