Hezbollah did not need further proof of Israel’s formidable intelligence and external operations capabilities, but it got it anyway.

By remotely detonating thousands of pagers carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, not only was a central element of the militant group’s communications crippled, but its members were also exposed, killed, injured and humiliated.

The impact was far-reaching: the Lebanese health minister said nine people had died and 2,800 people had been injured, 200 of them seriously.

Among them were some victims who were not members of Hezbollah, such as an eight-year-old girl who was killed in the Bekaa Valley.

The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was also injured, which shows how closely the country cooperates with Hezbollah.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

But this decision follows the assassination of Hezbollah’s highest-ranking military commander, Fuad Shukr, by Israel in Beirut at the end of July and the alleged assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by Israel in Tehran just hours later.

Shukr was killed in Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold of Dahiyeh and Haniyeh was blown up in an Iranian Revolutionary Guard safe house, underscoring Israel’s ability to penetrate into the heart of enemy territory.

Now the Israelis have apparently intercepted a shipment of pagers and loaded them with explosives. Hezbollah had bought this shipment expressly for the purpose of evading Israeli surveillance of its mobile communications.

“Hezbollah has invested in pagers as a less technologically advanced way to evade Israeli signals intelligence interception of its communications,” Matthew Levitt, director of the counterterrorism and intelligence program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told ABC.

“And now it appears that the Israelis were able to penetrate Hezbollah’s supply chain for these pagers and build them so that they could burn or explode simultaneously.

“This was a very significant intelligence coup on the part of the Israelis, and Hezbollah not only has to constantly look around, but also feels vulnerable.”

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The escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon

The key question is not only how Israel did it, but why it did it now.

It does not look like Israel will follow up the pager detonations with the invasion of southern Lebanon that it has been threatening since the beginning of the year. The Israeli military says its security guidelines for citizens remain unchanged.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones at Israel since last October, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

About 60,000 Israelis and nearly 100,000 Lebanese have fled their respective neighboring countries.

Since then, Israeli bombings have devastated villages in southern Lebanon, and it is estimated that Israel has killed more than 400 Hezbollah members and destroyed a missile production facility in Syria.

Last month, Israel appeared to have thwarted Hezbollah’s promise of revenge for the killing of Fuad Shukr when it preemptively attacked several rocket launch sites in the early hours of the morning.

The Israeli military has approved operational plans to invade southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah out of the border area if the group does not withdraw and US attempts to broker a diplomatic solution fail.

Hezbollah has said it will not stop firing at Israel until there is a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and has assured that it will not be deterred by the pager explosions.

“Our stance will remain: victories and support for the honorable Palestinian resistance and a source of pride in our lives and deaths,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

The psychological element of the pager attack

Matthew Levitt said the incident would further unsettle the group.

“Anyone who currently uses Hezbollah equipment will be wary of relying on it. I think it will have an immediate disruptive effect, and that effect will not last long,” he said.

“I am convinced that every foot soldier or senior leader of Hezbollah has to look around once, twice or three times right now.

“They can find your highest ranking leader. They know your attack intentions before you carry them out, and they can blow up the pager on your belt.”

In Israel, where there is great pressure on the government to resolve the situation near the Lebanese border, reactions to the attack were mixed.

“What Israel should have done, and what many in the Israeli defense establishment have recommended, is to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, which brings about a ceasefire in the north, and then leave the place to diplomacy,” Israeli security commentator Amir Oren told Al Jazeera.

“Hopefully this is a replacement for a ground maneuver and not a precursor to one.”