Exploding Pagers in Lebanon: Taste of what's yet to come?

Update 9/18, 7 a.m. EST: In a press conference Wednesday, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad updated the casualties, saying close to 2,800 injured and 12 dead in yesterday's exploding pager attack. An 11-year-old boy, in addition to an 8-year-old girl, are among the dead.

It's not clear at this juncture whether the exploding Hezbollah pager attack in Lebanon that has so far killed nine people — including an 8-year-old girl — and injured nearly 3,000 — including Iran’s ambassador, who was using Hezbollah’s phone network— was a between-meal snack or an amuse bouche preceding a lavish entrée.

Reports indicate this was a coordinated attack and a significant breach of the militants’ communications system. Presumably the Israelis, if they intend to strike, will want to do so while Hezbollah’s command and control is disrupted.

Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant has been eager to commence some sort of large-scale operation in the north; this is why he has been a proponent of a Gaza ceasefire. Apparently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made the return of Israeli civilians to their homes in the north a war aim. He has said this publicly but more importantly directly to the senior U.S. official monitoring the situation. (For the record, Washington has noted that a war in the north would preclude the return of internally displaced Israelis to northern towns.)

Apart from Israel’s exploitation of Hezbollah communications to enable the detonation of thousands of pagers, there have not been any obvious precursors to a large-scale Israeli ground attack. It is possible, of course, that the IDF is content to stage an incursion with a smaller force than would seem prudent, along the lines of the one currently deployed to the northern front (1 active and 1 reserve division). But the operational risk could be considerable. So for the moment, it’s wait and see.