Netanyahu acknowledges Israel was behind Hezbollah pager, walkie-talkie attack
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged for the first time that he greenlit an operation on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in September that saw thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies explode across Lebanon and parts of Syria, killing dozens.
During a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said the attacks and Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed that same month in an airstrike on Beirut, were carried out "despite the opposition" of some Israeli officials, according to comments leaked to the Times of Israel.
Netanyahu's comments came after he fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday, the culmination of long-simmering disagreements between the two about how Israel should carry out wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Netanyahu said a "crisis of trust" had developed between the two. He appointed Foreign Minister Israel Katz to take over the position.
Gallant was a close counterpart to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and the two spoke often. His firing, on the day of the U.S. election, was seen by some Israel watchers as Netanyahu sweeping under the rug a move to weed out dissent in his government. One U.S. official said it was cause for alarm.
The pager attacks escalated Israel's attacks on Hezbollah. Days afterwards, Israel ramped up its airstrikes on Lebanese territory, mostly in the southern part of the country and the southern suburbs of Beirut. Israeli troops subsequently entered Lebanon to conduct ground raids for the first time since 2006.
The latest Israeli attacks on Lebanon came on Saturday, killing 53 people and bringing the death toll in the country to 3,186, according to local officials.
Hezbollah has kept up a near-daily barrage of rocket launches on northern Israel for more than a year – since Oct. 7, 2023, when its ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, carried out a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostage. Israel launched its ongoing siege of Gaza in response, which has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. This has created a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the densely-packed enclave.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are part of a group of Iran-funded militias in the region known as the "axis of resistance."
Contributing: Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Netanyahu acknowledges pager attack despite Israeli 'opposition'