Former Israeli senior cyber official says Hezbollah's challenge of finding new communication system 'sets them back many years'

Refael Franco, a former deputy director general of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate has assessed that the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist militia Hezbollah is in an organizational shock after several thousand pagers used by Hezbollah operatives exploded in various parts of Lebanon.

At least several dozen Hezbollah operatives were killed and hundreds seriously injured in the attacks widely attributed to Israel, though Jerusalem has not officially claimed responsibility.

“It was precise while widespread,” Franco said of the pager explosions. He stressed that the incident came after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah banned the forces from using cell phones after Israeli intelligence had penetrated Hezbollah’s communication system. 

“Several months ago, Hezbollah decided to equip itself with pagers,” Franco recalled. “That decision is, in my eyes, the real turning point… Nasrallah understood that he couldn’t use cell phones anymore,”

“You ask me where the agent is. I tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife’s hands, and in your children’s hands is the agent,” Nasrallah warned during a speech in February. 

Franco believes it will be challenging for Hezbollah leadership to find an alternative communication system for the forces.

“Controlling thousands of fighters and units when they don’t have a way to communicate, that is something that sets them back many years,” he assessed. Furthermore, he stressed that it will take time for Hezbollah to implement a new system at a time when the terrorist group has low confidence in any communication technologies that are needed for communication between Hezbollah commanders and their operatives. 

Hezbollah is believed to have tens of thousands of operatives spread out across mainly southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern neighborhoods and the strategically important Beqaa Valley, close to the Syrian border. 

While Franco did not confirm whether Israel was behind the latest mass device explosions, he argued that it was possible to disrupt the software or hardware of various systems. 

“By learning the device extremely well, you can interfere with its software or hardware without the user knowing,” he said without elaborating. 

The New York Times recently reported that the Hungary-based company BAC, which provided Hezbollah with the compromised pagers, was an Israeli shell company. BAC reportedly operated a legitimate business with conventional pagers but specifically earmarked the compromised pagers for Hezbollah. In 2022, BAC received a small pager order from Hezbollah, which expanded into a recent large order after the Hezbollah leader had banned the use of cell phones. 

Looking ahead, Franco believes the next step for Israel is to get a deeper understanding of “the entire Hezbollah supply chain – purchasing, distribution, budget.”

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck some 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers on Thursday that were ready for use and capable of firing 1,000 rockets into the Jewish state.

On Friday, the IAF eliminated the top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, the head of the group’s elite Radwan commando unit, in a strike in Beirut.

Hezbollah quickly confirmed that Aqil had been killed alongside at least a dozen other senior Hezbollah operatives. The Radwan force, which consists of highly trained, equipped and motivated operatives, was planning to invade northern Israel and carry out an Oct. 7-type attack, the Israeli military reported.