Hezbollah chief admits group wildly underestimated Israel’s surveillance capabilities ahead of pager operation

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem admits that the Lebanese terror group drastically underestimated the extent of Israel’s surveillance capabilities in the run-up to the pager operation last September, when thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives exploded across Lebanon, injuring thousands and killing dozens.

In an interview with the pro-Hezbollah al-Mayadeen news outlet, Qassem admits that an investigation in the wake of the pager operation uncovered serious flaws in Hezbollah’s procurement process, dating back more than a year.

“We didn’t know the supply chain had been exposed,” he says.

He says that although the terror group’s security checks failed to find the explosives that had been placed within each individual pager, operatives had begun to suspect something was wrong with them in the days leading up to the attacks.

“There were efforts to examine the pager differently, including attempts to break it open, prompted by some anomalies that raised questions,” he says, suggesting that these efforts may have prompted Israel to detonate the pagers sooner than planned.

Qassem, who took over as the leader of the terror group following the assassination of his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah, also concedes that Hezbollah had no idea that Israel’s surveillance capabilities were as advanced and far-reaching as they are.

He says they were aware that there had been possible wiretapping but “did not realize the extent — that it was near-total and very extensive.”

The Hezbollah chief estimates that Israel has been collecting data through aerial surveillance for the past 17 years — since the end of the Second Lebanon War — and that the terror group “couldn’t grasp how deep” it went.

He denies, however, that there were any serious cases of Israeli spies infiltrating Hezbollah’s senior ranks.