Israel reportedly carried out Hezbollah pager attack amid concerns plot would be uncovered: ‘Use it or lose it’

Israel activated a plan to explode pagers carried by Hezbollah members amid fears the plot was about to be uncovered by the Iran-backed terror group, three US officials tell Axios.

“It was a use it or lose it moment,” a US official tells the outlet when explaining Israel’s reasoning for carrying out the attack yesterday.

While the widescale, coordinated attack has been attributed to Israel, there has been no comment from Jerusalem.

A former Israeli official tells Axios that Israel had planned to use the exploding pagers as an opening blow in an all-out war with the terror group, but had become concerned in recent days that the booby-trapped devices could be discovered.

Axios says Al Monitor reported that two members of Hezbollah had recently raised concerns about the pagers.

According to Axios, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant updated the US a few minutes prior to the attack that an assault was about to take place, but did not give details.

At least nine people were killed and thousands were injured when pagers held by Hezbollah members across Lebanon exploded yesterday afternoon.

The unprecedented wave of explosions, which also reportedly killed and injured several people in Syria, as well as injuring the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, sparked chaos in a region already on high alert for the outbreak of full-scale hostilities.