Artwork

Innehåll tillhandahållet av The Free Press. Allt poddinnehåll inklusive avsnitt, grafik och podcastbeskrivningar laddas upp och tillhandahålls direkt av The Free Press eller deras podcastplattformspartner. Om du tror att någon använder ditt upphovsrättsskyddade verk utan din tillåtelse kan du följa processen som beskrivs här https://sv.player.fm/legal.
Player FM - Podcast-app
Gå offline med appen Player FM !

Hezbollah's Pagers and Walkie-Talkies Explode. Now What?

59:06
 
Dela
 

Manage episode 440678254 series 2938331
Innehåll tillhandahållet av The Free Press. Allt poddinnehåll inklusive avsnitt, grafik och podcastbeskrivningar laddas upp och tillhandahålls direkt av The Free Press eller deras podcastplattformspartner. Om du tror att någon använder ditt upphovsrättsskyddade verk utan din tillåtelse kan du följa processen som beskrivs här https://sv.player.fm/legal.

On Tuesday, hundreds of encrypted pagers in Lebanon and Syria began exploding at the same time. Lebanon’s health minister said Tuesday that at least nine people were killed and 2,800 were injured. The tiny country’s hospitals were overwhelmed with patients suffering from burn wounds, blown-up hands, and groin injuries. The pagers belonged to members of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.

Then, just 24 hours later, a second wave of thousands more explosions again went off simultaneously in Lebanon: This time not only pagers, but also walkie-talkies all belonging to Hezbollah terrorists.

It was the stuff of spy movies—an incredibly sophisticated and precise operation unlike anything we’ve seen before. And while Israel has not officially taken responsibility, this kind of imaginative sabotage has Mossad written all over it. Hezbollah has vowed retaliation against Israel.

This comes after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel. Since October 7, the constant barrage of attacks has forced some 100,000 Israelis to flee their homes on Israel’s northern border. Nearly a year later, they still cannot return.

All of this, of course, is part of a much larger, more dangerous game being played across the region—Israel’s shadow war with Iran, its most formidable adversary. For years, Israel and Iran have avoided direct conflict, preferring to fight through Iran’s regional surrogates—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen. All of them fueled by Iranian money, weapons, and ideology.

Will Israel’s alleged tactical brilliance this week—jokingly dubbed as Operation Below the Belt on social media—deter Hezbollah from continuing to launch the missiles and rockets into Israel that make it impossible for Israeli citizens to return home? Or is military intervention—a ground invasion—inevitable?

As Eli Lake wrote in The Free Press today, “Israel cannot defeat its enemies by waging war only in the shadows.”

Today, I sat down with journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Dexter Filkins to talk about all of it. Dexter has been covering wars in the Middle East for decades for The New York Times and The New Yorker, and has been called “the premier combat journalist of his generation.”

In our conversation, we discussed the state of the war, political divisions within Lebanon, Iran’s nuclear program, the viability of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, and the difficulties for the United States of disengaging from Middle East conflicts.

If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  continue reading

236 episoder

Artwork
iconDela
 
Manage episode 440678254 series 2938331
Innehåll tillhandahållet av The Free Press. Allt poddinnehåll inklusive avsnitt, grafik och podcastbeskrivningar laddas upp och tillhandahålls direkt av The Free Press eller deras podcastplattformspartner. Om du tror att någon använder ditt upphovsrättsskyddade verk utan din tillåtelse kan du följa processen som beskrivs här https://sv.player.fm/legal.

On Tuesday, hundreds of encrypted pagers in Lebanon and Syria began exploding at the same time. Lebanon’s health minister said Tuesday that at least nine people were killed and 2,800 were injured. The tiny country’s hospitals were overwhelmed with patients suffering from burn wounds, blown-up hands, and groin injuries. The pagers belonged to members of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.

Then, just 24 hours later, a second wave of thousands more explosions again went off simultaneously in Lebanon: This time not only pagers, but also walkie-talkies all belonging to Hezbollah terrorists.

It was the stuff of spy movies—an incredibly sophisticated and precise operation unlike anything we’ve seen before. And while Israel has not officially taken responsibility, this kind of imaginative sabotage has Mossad written all over it. Hezbollah has vowed retaliation against Israel.

This comes after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel. Since October 7, the constant barrage of attacks has forced some 100,000 Israelis to flee their homes on Israel’s northern border. Nearly a year later, they still cannot return.

All of this, of course, is part of a much larger, more dangerous game being played across the region—Israel’s shadow war with Iran, its most formidable adversary. For years, Israel and Iran have avoided direct conflict, preferring to fight through Iran’s regional surrogates—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen. All of them fueled by Iranian money, weapons, and ideology.

Will Israel’s alleged tactical brilliance this week—jokingly dubbed as Operation Below the Belt on social media—deter Hezbollah from continuing to launch the missiles and rockets into Israel that make it impossible for Israeli citizens to return home? Or is military intervention—a ground invasion—inevitable?

As Eli Lake wrote in The Free Press today, “Israel cannot defeat its enemies by waging war only in the shadows.”

Today, I sat down with journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Dexter Filkins to talk about all of it. Dexter has been covering wars in the Middle East for decades for The New York Times and The New Yorker, and has been called “the premier combat journalist of his generation.”

In our conversation, we discussed the state of the war, political divisions within Lebanon, Iran’s nuclear program, the viability of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, and the difficulties for the United States of disengaging from Middle East conflicts.

If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  continue reading

236 episoder

Alla avsnitt

×
 
Loading …

Välkommen till Player FM

Player FM scannar webben för högkvalitativa podcasts för dig att njuta av nu direkt. Den är den bästa podcast-appen och den fungerar med Android, Iphone och webben. Bli medlem för att synka prenumerationer mellan enheter.

 

Snabbguide