Netanyahu Reveals Hezbollah Was Suspicious of Beepers, Causing Israel to Expedite Operation

Though the beeper detonation operation against the Hezbollah terror group was planned years in advance, it needed to be expedited in an emergency, as the terrorists were beginning to be suspicious, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu revealed in a Sunday talk with JNS.

“In the third week, I think, of September, we learned that Hezbollah had sent three beepers to be scanned in Iran. We had previously bombed a scanner they were going to bring in. So we got rid of that and the guy who operates it, but now they had these.”

After hearing of the scanners, Netanyahu ordered the detonations to be carried out the following day, he said.

Speaking in more detail about the explosives used in the beepers, Netanyahu noted that there was a “minuscule amount of TNT. And I when the Mossad guy showed it to me a few months earlier…I say, is that really going to do the job? I mean, how much TNT and you have there? So he says nanograms, something like that. I said, What is that going to do? It’s not going to do anything. He said, Oh no, it’ll do it.”

During the operation, dozens of Hezbollah terrorists were killed and hundreds wounded, while the group’s communications array was dismantled, as part of a massive campaign designed to cripple Hezbollah, which culminated in a ceasefire that has been in place since November.