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Opinion
Marc Champion, Columnist
September 18, 2024 at 4:28 AM GMT+8
By Marc Champion
Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.
Lebanese army soldiers stand guard at the entrance of a hospital in Beirut on September 17, 2024.
Photographer: ANWAR AMRO/AFP
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In what must count as one of the more extraordinary acts of sabotage of all time, as many as 2,800 people, including hundreds of Hezbollah officials, were injured and several killed across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to the country’s health ministry, when the pagers they use to communicate exploded. Somebody transformed the devices into bombs before their distribution, and the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was among those wounded.
It isn’t as if another smoking gun was needed to establish Iran’s deep integration with members of the so-called arc of resistance it has built around Israel — from Hezbollah to Hamas to the Houthis of Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. Even so, assuming that Iran’s state-run Mehr news agency is properly informed, there it was: a smoking pager, given to the ambassador as
Opinion
Marc Champion, Columnist
Hezbollah Pager Attack Looks Like a Decapitation Strike
Sabotage hits Hezbollah’s top command as speculation is rife that Netanyahu may expand the Gaza war to Lebanon.September 18, 2024 at 4:28 AM GMT+8
By Marc Champion
Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.

Lebanese army soldiers stand guard at the entrance of a hospital in Beirut on September 17, 2024.
Photographer: ANWAR AMRO/AFP
Save
Translate
In what must count as one of the more extraordinary acts of sabotage of all time, as many as 2,800 people, including hundreds of Hezbollah officials, were injured and several killed across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to the country’s health ministry, when the pagers they use to communicate exploded. Somebody transformed the devices into bombs before their distribution, and the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was among those wounded.
It isn’t as if another smoking gun was needed to establish Iran’s deep integration with members of the so-called arc of resistance it has built around Israel — from Hezbollah to Hamas to the Houthis of Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. Even so, assuming that Iran’s state-run Mehr news agency is properly informed, there it was: a smoking pager, given to the ambassador as