London
CNN
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Is this the prelude to a larger attack or the real message to Hezbollah? That is the key question for the next 48 hours in the Middle East as the Lebanese militant group tries to come to terms with the widespread disruption and breach of its main means of communication.

Tuesday’s wave of explosions in Lebanon is likely to scar the party, as it is often called, which prides itself on its secrecy and the technological omertà its members adhere to. Yet it is precisely their effort to keep their secrets – using low-tech pagers and untraceable smartphones – that appears to have led to several deaths and thousands of injuries.

It must have caused a seismic shock that Hezbollah members are now wondering not only whether it is safe to contact their colleagues, but also whether these colleagues are unharmed.

Significantly, Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack. However, if it was behind it, as Lebanon and Hezbollah claim, the question arises as to whether this massive and unprecedented attack was intended as a precursor to larger fighting.

It would make strategic sense to create a moment of intense chaos like this just before a major military attack on the group.

The timing is telling. Just on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a meeting with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein that the time for diplomacy with Hezbollah was over and military power could take center stage. Literally hours later, the enemy’s entire communications infrastructure was hit by an attack that, according to a Lebanese security source, used pagers that Hezbollah had purchased in “the last few months,” requiring a long lead time to plan the operation.

The violence again demonstrated that there is a technological gap between Israel and its adversaries. We have seen this repeatedly in recent years in high-profile killings in Tehran: in the precision of an apparent Mossad hit on an al-Qaeda leader in 2020; in the killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which reportedly used facial recognition to fire a machine gun; and in the recent assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which reportedly involved a remote-controlled bomb hidden in a guest room.

The same superior intelligence and capability was on display across Lebanon, where civilians appeared to be hit by widespread explosions that lacked precision. The horror of hundreds of seemingly simultaneous small but intimate explosions will be felt by ordinary Lebanese, a reminder of the damage wrought across the country by the 2006 war with their southern neighbor. The risk of renewed large-scale war with Israel has become a pressing reality since the October 7 attacks.

But this leaves Hezbollah in another unenviable moment of weakness – plunged into chaos and under great pressure to once again demonstrate strength. It faced the same dilemma after the assassination of senior commander Fu’ad Shukr in August. Hezbollah was forced to fight back and maintain a deterrent effect, but it slowly became clear that it lacked the enthusiasm for a larger conflict. Leader Hassan Nasrallah delayed its response to a time of his choosing, ensuring that the muted exchange of rocket fire and airstrikes that followed on August 25 did not spiral out of control.

At the same time, the general belief that Israel does not want war is fading. Israeli airstrikes hit targets in the north almost daily without concern for Hezbollah’s response. Tuesday’s large-scale attack on Lebanon will require Hezbollah to find ways to demonstrate strength through retaliation, but this again highlights the gap between its capabilities and those of its southern neighbor.

A long ground war between the two would mean that Israeli forces, overstretched and exhausted by a years-long brutal Gaza campaign, would face an enemy in the north that is fresher and better trained than Hamas. Should a full-scale battle break out, Hezbollah could still inflict significant damage on Israel. But Israel has perhaps decided too clearly that Hezbollah wants to avoid war and can therefore always be provoked.

It may be precisely this kind of miscalculation that will lead to an escalation of the conflict: the moment Hezbollah concludes that Israel has dismissed it as a permanent threat, it will be forced to resort to extremely violent measures.

The pager explosions could be an indication of a war in which one side is confident of its technological advantage but is also willing to take the risks associated with a complete embarrassment of the opponent. In the next few days we will learn whether the calculations behind the attack prevented or even encouraged escalation.