Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Hezbollah’s communications nightmare, regional elections in Kashmir, and a massive Ukrainian drone strike.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Hezbollah’s communications nightmare, regional elections in Kashmir, and a massive Ukrainian drone strike.
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First Pagers, Now Walkie-Talkies
Thousands of electronic devices, mainly hand-held two-way radios as well as some solar energy systems, detonated across Lebanon on Wednesday in the second Israeli-suspected attack on Hezbollah in two days. At least 14 people were killed and more than 450 wounded in the latest round of explosions, Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry said.
Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions followed hundreds of pagers detonating across Lebanon and parts of Syria on Tuesday. According to Lebanese Public Health Minister Firas al-Abyad on Wednesday, the pager blasts killed at least 12 people, including two children, and left around 2,800 others injured, roughly 300 of whom were in critical condition.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah announced that he will deliver a televised speech on Thursday at 5 p.m. local time to address the situation, which one Hezbollah official has called the militant group’s “biggest security breach” since the Israel-Hamas war began last October. The Iran-backed organization has vowed retaliation against Israel for the blasts.
“We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday, telling Israeli troops that after months of fighting Hamas in Gaza, “the center of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces.” Israel has not claimed responsibility for the detonations; however, officials from the United States and other countries have said the attacks were a joint operation between Israel’s external intelligence agency, Mossad, and the country’s military. In his remarks to Israeli Air Force personnel, Gallant did not explicitly mention the exploding devices, but he commended Mossad as well as the broader defense establishment for their “great achievements,” saying that “the results are very impressive.”
Israel is believed to have carried out Tuesday’s operation after it gathered intelligence that two Hezbollah members had caught wind of the pagers being compromised. “It was a use-it-or-lose-it moment,” one U.S. official told Axios. Washington denies having known about the explosions prior to them occurring.
Targeting thousands of people without knowledge of who held the devices or where they were located violates international law, United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said on Wednesday. He called for an independent investigation into the attack and urged world leaders to help temper the crisis. “De-escalation is today more crucial than ever,” Türk said.
Hezbollah reportedly purchased both the pagers and the hand-held radios around five months ago. On Wednesday, Taiwanese pager-maker Gold Apollo denied having produced the devices, claiming that another partner manufacturer, Budapest-based BAC Consulting, made the models using Gold Apollo branding as part of a licensing deal. Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs refuted the allegation, saying BAC “is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary” and that the devices in question were never in the country.
Israel’s security cabinet announced earlier this week that combatting Hezbollah along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon would now be an official war goal. On Wednesday, the Israeli military decided to move its 98th Division from Gaza to the embattled border. “Israel is pushing the entire region toward the abyss of regional war,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said. “Such a war would have drastic ramifications not only for the region, but for the world.”
Today’s Most Read
- The Biggest Question About the Hezbollah Pager Attack Is Why Now by Colin P. Clarke
- What Would Iran Do With the Bomb? by Sina Azodi
- Is 2024 Really the Most Important Election in History? by Michael Hirsh
What We’re Following
Kashmir elections. Indian-controlled Kashmir held its first round of regional elections on Wednesday, marking the first such vote since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party stripped the territory of its semi-autonomous status five years ago. In 2019, Modi divided the region into two federal territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir, which were put under direct New Delhi control. Both India and Pakistan claim the Kashmir Valley in its entirety, and each controls a portion of the region. Many Muslim Kashmiris living in Hindu-dominated India support the goals espoused by Kashmir separatist movements of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or with full independence.
Over three phases, 9 million eligible voters will choose legislators for a local assembly during the election—its first since 2014, when Modi’s party took power. Final results are expected on Oct. 8. Voter turnout on Wednesday hit nearly 59 percent, a change after decades of elections that were boycotted to protest Indian rule.
Local authorities deployed heavy security to establish checkpoints and patrol polling booths. And for the first time, foreign media received only limited access to voting stations, and most journalists with international outlets were denied press credentials. The region’s chief electoral officer said Wednesday’s vote was “incident-free and peaceful.”
Ghost operation. An Australian-led international operation infiltrated encrypted messaging app Ghost, Europol announced on Wednesday, leading to 51 arrests across several countries, including 38 in Australia alone. The effort, dubbed Operation Kraken, also dismantled a drug lab in Australia; seized weapons, drugs, and more than $1 million in cash; and prevented several threats to life, Europol said. Authorities in Canada, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States were also part of the operation.
The platform’s alleged administrator, Jay Je Yoon Jung, appeared in a Sydney court on Wednesday to face charges of supporting a criminal organization and benefitting from proceeds of crime. More arrests are expected to come.
Seismic blast. A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted a weapons depot in the western Russian region of Tver overnight on Wednesday. Earthquake monitors believe that explosions from the assault may have generated seismic activity measuring at a magnitude of 2.5 to 2.8. The warehouse was “literally wiped off the face of the Earth,” a Ukrainian security official said.
The Russian facility held Iskander tactical missiles, Tochka-U missile systems, anti-aircraft missiles, artillery ammunition, and glide bombs, Kyiv’s Defense Ministry said. North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles were also reportedly located at the site. Tver Gov. Igor Rudenya said some residents have evacuated the area.
At least 1 million people have been killed or wounded during Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Exact figures are difficult to determine, but some experts put Ukrainian military deaths at 80,000 and Russian military deaths as high as nearly 200,000.
Odds and Ends
New Zealand’s fiercely fought Bird of the Year contest revealed its 2024 winner on Monday. Meet the hoiho, a shy, yellow-eyed bird thought to be the rarest type of penguin in the world. This year’s contest saw extravagant costumes and meme wars, but it lacked a foreign interference scandal, such as when late night host John Oliver campaigned for the feather-eating puteketeke last year, causing a surge of votes. Conservationists hope that the hoiho’s win will draw public attention to threats of extinction for the penguin, whose name means “noise shouter” in the Maori language.