Exploding Pagers Kill Hezbollah In Lebanon-Why We Should Care

In some recent feature films, cell phones have been depicted as a delivery vehicle for lethal attacks. And now we come to find that a similar sort of attack, via hand-held devices, was planned and executed against Hezbollah by Israel.

This has resulted in an international flurry of response, including UN accusations that this constitutes a war crime by Israel, as well as some publicly voiced congratulations on the ingenuity of the attack, which took place on September 17 and 18 and reportedly injured at least 2800 people and killed at least nine. However, a key ingredient is missing from the dialogue. If hand-held devices, such as walkie talkies or pagers, can be implanted with explosives and can kill targets, how safe are any of us from this mode of attack?

According to this recent article, the attack was planned by Israeli unit 8200. The article states that “The unit is famous for a work culture that emphasizes out-of-the-box thinking to tackle issues previously not encountered or imagined. This helped some graduates build Israel’s high-tech sector and some of its biggest companies.” The article quotes a former member of Unit 8200, Kobi Samboursky, who is now Managing Partner at Glilot Capital Partners, as saying, “The most significant thing here is the ‘can-do’ culture, where everything is possible.”

All well and good. We want to rid the world of terrorism, right? But what does this actually signify for activists and journalists who also rely on the integrity of their hand-held devices?

Thanks to what was jumpstarted with Snowden’s revelations about the extent and reach of NSA spying, and continued on with the work of EFF and others, we now know that our hand-held devices, and particularly our cell phones, are simply spy devices. We carry them around everywhere we go, and the spy devices detail not only our phone calls, but also record any ambient conversation as well as track our movements. Nevertheless, we appear to fiercely addicted to them and reluctant to abandon them to the trash receptacle. The revelation that these electronic spy devices can also be used as a vehicle of assassination may provide a much needed wake-up call.

Or maybe not.

In a 2016 sci-fi thriller, Cell, we see where the populace at large has been transformed by a cell phone signal into flesh-eating zombies. John Cusack and Samuel Jackson narrowly missed being affected by the attack and they go on to seek safety and, in the process, to kill a whole lot of the zombies. But this is just science fiction, right? The fact remains that likely frequency attacks are now being dubbed as “Havana Syndrome,” which has produced debilitating effects in diplomats and intelligence officers. These attacks are now officially recognized, although the growing and numerous pleas for help from ordinary citizens, who also allege that they have been attacked with frequency weapons, remain unaddressed.

Fast forward to another feature film, this one released in 2009. Law Abiding Citizen details how a former CIA agent rigs a judge’s cell phone, causing it to explode and to kill the judge. As a thriller film which is not in the sci-fi genre, this may capture the attention of a few more concerned parties. Did this film spur on the work of Unit 8200? We will probably never know.

Personally, I have an admission to make here. I threw away my cell phone years ago, recognizing its capacity for surveillance and harm. I am not a Luddite and welcome technological advances which may simplify my life. However, the fact that technological advances may constitute a double-edged sword, and may be used against us, while advertising that they are designed to help us, is something we now cannot ignore.

Janet Phelan has been on the trail of the biological weapons agenda since the new millennium. Her book on the pandemic, At the Breaking Point of History: How Decades of US Duplicity Enabled the Pandemic, has been published in 2021 by Trine Day and is available on Amazon and elsewhere. Her articles on this issue have appeared in Activist Post, New Eastern Outlook, Infowars and elsewhere. Educated at Grinnell College, UC Berkeley and the University of Missouri Graduate School of Journalism, Janet jumped ship and since 2004 has been writing exclusively for independent media. Her articles previously appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Oui Magazine, Orange Coast Magazine, the Long Beach Press Telegram, the Santa Monica Daily Press and other publications. She is the author of the groundbreaking expose, EXILE and two books of poetry. She resides abroad. You may follow Janet on Parler here @JanetPhelan and Twitter @JanetPhelan14. To support her work, please go to JanetPhelan.