This week in Lebanon, a series of attacks targeted personal communications devices — like pagers and walkie talkies — belonging to members of the political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah. At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 injured, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Among the dead are at least two children.

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, referred to the attack as an ‘act of war’ and a ‘major terrorist operation.’ Israeli officials have said the country has entered a ‘new phase of the war.’

For a better picture on the ground in Beirut, as well as a sense of how the Israeli intelligence service managed to sabotage thousands of devices in Lebanon we’re joined by two journalists.

Edmund Bower is in Beirut and has reported for The Guardian, The Times of London and the Atlantic. And Yossi Melman is the co-author of Spies Against Armageddon as well as numerous other books on Israeli intelligence. He’s also an analyst for the newspaper Haaretz.

In this episode, we refer to a previous episode of Front Burner, which you can find below:

What is Hezbollah?

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Israel’s historic, deadly cyber attack in Lebanon

Front Burner