The mass explosions of wireless devices across Lebanon this week appear to be the latest in a string of covert attacks in recent years believed to have been conducted by Israel against its enemies abroad.
The attacks — including a series against Iran’s nuclear program — have embarrassed enemies and demonstrated Israel’s prowess at using military technology in ways that suggest it can strike anywhere and at any time.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, has blamed Israel for the attacks, in which explosive material was planted in wireless devices and detonated remotely.
On Tuesday, least 12 people were killed and thousands were maimed when pagers bought by Hezbollah for its members exploded. There was a second attack on Wednesday, when walkie-talkies that the militant group had bought exploded, killing at least 14 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry,
The blasts appeared to cast a far wider net than other attacks, which frequently targeted individuals.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for this week’s attacks, or for many other attacks that have been attributed to it. They include:
Attacks on Iran’s nuclear program
A series of operations, including assassinations and sabotage, over the years have targeted senior leaders involved with Iran’s nuclear program. These included the poisoning of a nuclear scientist in 2007 and the killing of another in 2010 by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle.
Between 2010 and 2012, four people with links to Iran’s nuclear program were killed by hit men riding motorcycles. In one case, in 2010, an assassin attached a sticky bomb to a car door. In others, gunmen approached vehicles in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and fired through the window before speeding off.
In November 2020, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by gunshots fired from a truck-mounted machine gun that had been attached to a remote-controlled robotic apparatus. Experts said the operation had taken months, and likely years, of planning.
Cyber warfare and nuclear secrets
Starting in 2006, U.S. military and Israeli intelligence officials began a top-secret cyberwar program against Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.
Israel’s Dimona complex, the heart of its never-acknowledged nuclear arms program in the Negev desert, was used as a testing ground for the Stuxnet computer worm. The destructive program was eventually credited with wiping out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, which Tehran needs to produce a nuclear weapon.
In 2018, Israeli spies armed with torches broke into a warehouse in Tehran and seized a trove of documents about Iran’s nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later used the documents to accuse Iran of lying for years about its efforts to build a nuclear weapon.
After Oct. 7
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has conducted a series of assassinations of commanders of Iran’s regional proxy forces, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
These attacks have come at the same time as Israel’s wide-scale military offensive in Gaza, which health officials there say have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians. The United Nations, human rights groups and some governments have accused Israel of using disproportionate force in its war in Gaza against Hamas. Israel says its use of force is justified and legal.
In April, Israel bombed a building that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, Syria, killing seven people including a general who oversaw Iran’s covert military operations in Syria and Lebanon. In response, Iran launched a missile and drone attack on Israel, the first time it had attempted to strike the country directly after a decadeslong shadow war.
In July, Israel assassinated a senior leader of Hezbollah, Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike on a house in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Israel claimed responsibility for the killing, which it said was retaliation for an attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights days earlier that had killed at least 12 people.
Hours later, the leader of Hamas’ political office, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by an explosive device hidden in a guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying after he had attended the inauguration of Iran’s president. Iran vowed to retaliate for the attack, which it called a violation of its sovereignty. Israel did not confirm or deny involvement in that attack.
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