Beepergate: A New Era of Warfare or a War Crime?
By Daniel Millsap | March 14, 2025
Updated on March 21, 2025 to include verified sources and enhanced legal citations.
Disclaimer: This article has been updated to include primary-source documents, treaty texts, and legal commentary from institutions such as the ICRC, Harvard Law Review, and AP News. Every major factual and legal claim is now backed by citation-grade evidence.
At first, it sounded like a glitch. In homes, in cafés, in the pockets of medics and militants alike—hundreds of pagers chirped their final notes before erupting into smoke, fire, and panic. It was September 17, 2024, and the world was about to learn a new word: Beepergate.
Across Lebanon and parts of Syria, pagers and walkie-talkies—devices typically used for communication—were transformed into lethal traps. By the time the second wave struck on September 18, even the act of answering a call had become a question of life or death. [1]
Responsibility for the operation has not been officially claimed. But to seasoned intelligence professionals, the operation bore unmistakable hallmarks. “The Mossad’s signature is ‘hardly in doubt,’” said Olivier Mas, a former officer with France’s DGSE, the country’s equivalent of the CIA. [2]
What made Beepergate extraordinary wasn’t just its precision. It was its moral architecture. The devices that exploded were not dropped from drones or hidden in bunkers—they were items people carried on their belts, passed to children, brought to funerals. UN experts later described it as “a terrifying violation of international law.” [3]
The law Israel is accused of violating is not obscure. Protocol II of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits the use of booby-traps connected to civilian objects. Article 6 makes clear: “It is prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps which are in any way attached to or associated with… objects clearly of a civilian character.” [4]
According to Lebanese officials, at least nine people were killed, including a child. Thousands more were injured. One of the worst blasts occurred during a funeral procession. The mourners had no known ties to Hezbollah. [5][6]
Then there’s the trauma. A 2022 meta-analysis found that nearly one in four refugee children (22.7%) exposed to war met clinical criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, with anxiety and depression affecting another substantial portion. [7]
Israel, for its part, has not commented. And the United States has remained silent, too—at least in the official sense. Since 1972, the U.S. has vetoed at least 49 UN resolutions that sought to hold Israel accountable for similar incidents. [9]
Was this counterterrorism? A surgical strike? Or something else entirely? Scholars of asymmetric warfare have a term for it: when state actors adopt tactics that would be labeled “terrorism” if used by non-state groups. [8]
Labels matter. “Terrorist,” “freedom fighter,” “defense operation”—these are not neutral terms. They are political currency. As the Harvard Law Review wrote, “Labels like ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’ are often less about the nature of violence and more about who wields it.” [10]
Western media rarely interrogates this. Media coverage tends to reflect the political interests of the state, not the ethical content of the act, as discussed by the Carnegie Council in their analysis of media narratives and terrorism. [11] Meanwhile, international watchdogs warn that we are creating a world where “certain states enjoy impunity while others are vilified for similar acts.” [12]
There was no warning before the pagers exploded. No evacuation order. Just a frequency, a pulse—and then the silence of bodies falling.
Footnotes
- [1] Financial Times – How Israel’s ‘Operation Grim Beeper’ Rattled Global Spy Chiefs. Read
- [2] Le Monde – Explosions de bipeurs au Liban. Commentary by DGSE veteran Olivier Mas attributes operation to Israeli intelligence. View original (French)
- [3] OHCHR – Exploding pagers and radios a “terrifying violation of international law”, say UN experts. Read full release
- [4] ICRC – Protocol II to the CCW (1980). Read treaty
- [5] Associated Press – Hezbollah is hit by a wave of exploding pagers. Read
- [6] Associated Press – Second wave of explosions hits Lebanon a day after pager attack. Read
- [7] Frontiers in Public Health – Impact of War and Displacement on Children’s Mental Health. Read study
- [8] SSRN – Asymmetric Warfare: A State vs. Non-State Conflict. Download PDF
- [9] Middle East Eye – The 49 times the US has used its veto power against UN resolutions on Israel. Read article
- [10] Harvard Law Review – On Terrorists and Freedom Fighters. Read
- [11] Carnegie Council – Western Media and Terrorism. Read article
- [12] ECCHR – Double Standards in Counterterrorism. Read statement